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Having received " The Story of Nedda " and wishing to 
assist in preventing severe suffering here in Boston and vicinity 
among the destitute families of Italian reservists who are now in 
Italy at the front, I take pleasure in subscribing and enclosing 

the sum of to the New England Italian War Relief 

Fund, my remittance being in the form of 

Name 



Address 



Having received "The Story of Nedda" and wishing to 
assist in preventing severe suffering here in Boston and vicinity 
among the destitute families of Italian reservists who are now in 
Italy at the front, I take pleasure in subscribing and enclosing 

the sum of to the Nero England Italian War Belief 

Fund, my remittance being in the form of 

Name 

Address 

Having received " The Story of Nedda " and wishing to 
assist in preventing severe suffering here in Boston and vicinity 
among the destitute families of Italian reservists who arc now in 
Italy at the front, I take pleasure in subscribing and enclosing 

the sum of to the Nero England Italian War Belief 

Fund, my remittance being in the form of 

Name 



Address 



N.B. Kindly be sure to detach, fill in, and enclose one of the above sub- 
scription forms with your remittance and also state whether a cheque, a Post 
Office Money Order, or what form of remittance is enclosed. It is advisable not 
to enclose currency. Make your cheque or money order payable to the New Eng- 
land Italian War Relief Fund. . 

Address all letters containing remittances to Messrs. Lee, Higginson & Co., 
Treasurers of the Fund, 44 State Street, Boston, Mass. 

No sum is too small, none too large, for acceptance. The fund can find use 
for any donation which you, kind reader, may see fit to send and will receive it 
with gratitude. 



,,,,,.«,,,. , . . .,,,,,,,■,,.', 



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I 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 



THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS PRESENTED 

WITH THE 

COMPLIMENTS OF 

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 

OF THE 

NEW ENGLAND ITALIAN WAR RELIEF FUND 

IN THE HOPE THAT ITS MESSAGE 

MAT INCREASE YOUR INTEREST 

IN THEIR WORK 




. 









Nedda 



THE 

STORY OF NEDDA 

An Italian Reservist's Wife 
LEWIS NILES ROBERTS 

Member of the Executive Committee of the New England Italian 
War Relief Fund 

With a Frontispiece from a 
Charcoal Drawing by 

JOHN S. SARGENT, R.A. 

and Other Illustrations 



CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1917 



Copyright, 1917, 
By Lewis Niles Roberts 



MAR 14 1917 
•CI.A455885 






TO 

MRS. GEORGE LEE 

CHAIRMAN OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 

OP THE 

NEW ENGLAND ITALIAN WAH RELIEF FUND 

THIS LITTLE STORY 

IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 

IN APPRECIATION OF 

HER UNTIRING EFFORTS AND VERY GREAT ASSISTANCE 

RENDERED SINCE ITS INCEPTION 

TO THE FUND 



FOREWORD 

THIS little tale postulates the non-existence of 
the New England Italian War Relief Fund 
and endeavors to present the situation which would 
long ago have confronted many of our poor Italian 
women in the North End, with their little children, 
if such a relief had not been organized, and which 
will inevitably confront them if the fund breaks 
down through lack of support from the public. 

Both the author and the Executive Committee of 
the fund wish to express their gratitude and appre- 
ciation to Mr. John S. Sargent for having so gener- 
ously made a drawing for the frontispiece. They 
also wish to thank the Houghton, Mifflin Company 
for having kindly permitted two illustrations in 
publications by them to be reproduced in this book 
and Mr. C. Howard Roberts for his personal efforts 
and assistance on matters connected with its publi- 
cation. They furthermore express their thanks and 
recognition of the generosity of Mr. Adrian J. Iorio 
for having specially drawn and given a cover design. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Nedda Frontispiece : 

By John S. Sargent 

FACING PAGE 

Nedda's Madonna 26 

From " The Holy Night " by Correggio 

Nedda's Quarter 74' 

By Lester G. Hornby 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 

An Italian Reservist's Wife 



WHEN the big White Star liner Canopic en- 
tered the port of Boston from Italy and 
backed in beside the new dock, there were no happier 
hearts among all its twelve hundred immigrants than 
Marco and Nedda Lucetti. They had embarked 
from sunny Sicily on a double venture, matrimony 
and a new start in life, and they were both very 
young and very much in love. So indeed what more 
could one want to explain the smile on Nedda's 
pretty face and the confidence in Marco's black 
eyes as they looked down from the side of the ship 
on the preparations for debarkation? 

It had been a boy and girl love, theirs in the 
straggling hillside village behind Palermo, and it 
had ripened frankly and openly among the lemon 
trees of that peaceful countryside until the old 
priest blessed them and gave them to each other. A 
small legacy of eight hundred lire ($160) from 
Marco's old grandfather, who had died the previous 
autumn, had made their emigration possible; and 
though there was no better or stronger workman 
than Marco in the village and Nedda could wash at 
the riverside with any girl thereabouts and cook 



2 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

home-made macaroni with the best of them, yet she 
and Marco decided upon this journey to far-away 
America in the hope of larger opportunities and 
better things in life. It was Marco's idea prin- 
cipally. He was full of it and most confident of 
steady employment there and high pay. Had not 
Renaldo Monti come back, after fifteen years, a rich 
man and able to build his own house and do nothing 
save watch his lemons ripen and his wife and chil- 
dren grow fat from all the good things they ate? 
So it was settled and they were married, and a few 
days later they boarded the Canopic at Palermo and 
sailed westward towards the land of promise. 

The young couple made a really charming picture 
as they stood together by the ship's rail, a little 
apart from the mass of the immigrants, who were 
already crowding towards the gangway, and even 
the stevedores on the wharf seemed to look up at 
them with appreciation. 

Marco, with his hat off and a red handkerchief 
knotted around his neck, was of good height, slen- 
der and sinewy, with a skin of dull bronze, clean-cut 
features, and a well-shaped head, framed in glossy 
black curls and firmly set on manly shoulders. His 
attitude was typically Latin, graceful, almost non- 
chalant, but in his easy relaxation one felt much 
strength in reserve and the power for work when 
called upon. 

Nedda seemed such a little thing, small even for 
an Italian woman, but well made and as yet unbent 
by drudgery, like the older women of her class. She 
was so thin she looked only a slip of a girl and 
would have been taken by most observers for her 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 3 

companion's sister. Her head-shawl had slipped 
back on her shoulders in her preoccupation, reveal- 
ing a pretty and very winning little face. If her 
features were less regular than Marco's, she had a 
sweetness of expression that was exceptional and a 
smile that was irresistible, together with coloring 
such as only Italy can give and very lovely dark 
eyes. 

So these two arrived in the country of their 
dreams, and a week later found them living in a 
tiny bedroom and still more tiny kitchen in a tene- 
ment house in the Italian quarter in Boston's North 
End. The rent was high for such poor accommoda- 
tion and living was dear, as they soon discovered, 
and when war began in Europe prices rose still 
higher. There were, however, plenty of jobs to be 
had for an able-bodied youth like Marco, who was 
not afraid of hard manual labor, and in all the city 
there was not a more contented couple than the 
Lucettis. 

Two young persons, very happy together and 
busy with the small affairs of daily life, have not 
much time to make acquaintances, and thus it hap- 
pened that neither Marco nor Nedda made many 
friends in the Italian colony, though of course their 
neighbors soon knew them by sight and commonly 
referred to them as the beautiful bride and groom. 
Nedda, when she went marketing, and Marco, going 
and returning from work, were objects of approving 
regard, for Italians are quick to perceive beauty 
and love it. 

Some months after these young people had ar- 
rived in this new land of opportunity, Nedda made 



4 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

a discovery and, having no intimate woman friend 
to whom to impart it, she whispered it to Marco, 
hiding her pretty face on his shoulder as she did so. 
It was a very momentous little secret to both of 
them, though one as old as is humanity — the hope 
of a coming joy, a new little life between them, to 
bind them even closer to each other. Marco was 
filled with a buoyant courage as he set out the next 
morning, for the coming responsibility had brought 
a greater determination into his life, a brighter 
glint of resolve into his eyes. He meant to be 
head of his gang of Italians in the street depart- 
ment, and that before long. Indeed even now he 
sometimes directed the men whenever the foreman 
was absent. 

As he made his way through the crowd that Feb- 
ruary morning he saw an unusual number of people 
in front of the bulletin boards of the newspapers. 
Being well ahead of time and with a few minutes to 
spare, he stopped and listened to the conversation 
about him, hoping to catch something of the latest 
war news, for though he had learned to speak English 
brokenly, he was still unable to read this strange 
new tongue. 

It so happened that next to him among the by- 
standers was an Italian workman whom he knew 
slightly. This man had been for some years in the 
United States and both read and spoke English. 
To Marco's question his acquaintance replied briefly, 
but with startling effect. There was likelihood of 
Italy entering the Great European War and of 
joining France and England and Russia against 
Austria. The man spat as he spoke the latter 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 5 

hated name, for he was from northern Italy. The 
bulletins were as to whether Italy would be drawn 
into the war or not. " If our nation does fight, I 
may not have to go, for I am old, but you will be 
among the first reservists to be called back. You 
are young and they will need you to stop the Aus- 
trian bullets," Marco's compatriot continued with a 
laugh. 

Marco did not reply, but started on with a heavy 
heart. Called away! To leave his little Nedda, 
his all, alone here in this foreign city and with so 
little money and no help from him. What would 
she do? How would she live, a stranger not know- 
ing the country or even its language? Marco 
turned faint for the first time in his life. This 
big swarthy fellow was completely unnerved and 
sat down heavily on a bench on the Common to 
think. He reviewed the situation all over again: 
what would become of Nedda, what would she do, if 
he were long at the war — if he were killed? He fore- 
saw how helpless she would be alone and feared that 
the pittance his country might give her as a soldier's 
wife during his absence would count for very little 
in this expensive land. 

The more he dwelt on this tragic possibility the 
more hopeless did it seem for his poor little girl- 
wife, and a bitter resolve began to form in his mind 
— to refuse his country's call and remain to protect 
her and their child. He knew it would mean dis- 
honor forever, and his face saddened into deep lines 
as he remembered the " Hymn of Garibaldi " of his 
childhood days and thought of his beloved Italy, per- 
haps soon to be in need of his help and abandoned 



6 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

by him who loved her so dearly. A church clock 
striking the hour recalled him to a sense of his pres- 
ent duty and he proceeded to his work, but with a 
spiritless step. 

When he returned home that night his face was 
set in an expression which Nedda had never seen, 
and there were lines which she had not noticed be- 
fore. Quick to imagine, she feared he might be ill, 
and the more so as he ate hardly any supper. Then 
it occurred to her that he might have had trouble 
with the foreman or even lost his job, for she knew 
that the city was at that time economizing and that 
many men in the street department had lately been 
discharged. She said nothing, however, for with true 
feminine instinct she understood that he would rather 
tell her at his own time and in his own way, but her 
poor little face lost all its rosy bloom and grew 
drawn and worried as she waited on him. 

After supper, in the gaslight in the bare little 
room which had become so endeared to them both, 
he told her very gently about the latest news of the 
great war, of the possibility of Italy's entering the 
struggle, and of the probability of his being called 
back to fight, if Italy became involved. 

His reference to the war did not startle her, for 
they spoke of it almost daily; but when he men- 
tioned the likelihood of Italy's becoming a com- 
batant — of this she had heard nothing, thought 
nothing — it came to her as a great shock. That 
Marco's class would be one of the first to be sum- 
moned she realized all too well. She kept silent for 
a moment and crept closer to him, while she tried 
to grasp the purport of his words. Her Marco 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 7 

gone and she alone in this strange place ! The 
thought of her loneliness and defencelessness fright- 
ened her. What if she should never see him again? 
At that presentment she drew still more closely to 
him, as though, even then, he were being torn from 
her. 

Soon she grew calmer in the protection of those 
strong arms and could comprehend what he was 
saying to her. He was telling her that Italy was 
not yet at war, might never engage in the conflict, 
and that he might not be recalled. And if he were 
forced to return it might not be until the summer, 
and there would be enough money to see her through 
her childbirth and well again. Then there would be 
an allowance for her from the Italian government; 
that was certain. He did not know how much, but 
it might be more for those wives of reservists who 
were living in this land which was so dear for all to 
live in, and perhaps it would be sufficient. 

Nedda, however, found it hard to be comforted 
and clung to him the more as she protested that 
she could not remain without him, and that she 
would go back with him on the boat as far as Sicily, 
among her own people, where she would feel safe and 
at home. 

Marco petted her and kissed her sad little tear- 
stained face, for he felt that what she proposed 
could not be encouraged. As the wife of a reservist, 
even if she were allowed to sail with him, the cost of 
her return would absorb some of their small savings, 
and if, at the end of the war, the remainder had been 
exhausted for her support and that of the baby so 
soon to arrive, it might be impossible for them to 



8 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

find money for the expense of another emigration 
to America. Furthermore the contest might not 
last very long, and in that event it would have been 
the height of folly to have broken up their life in 
their new home in a country where he meant to pros- 
per and grow rich. They would have lost a chance 
which might never be theirs again, and his pride 
stiffened at the thought of their returning thus from 
a land to which they had sailed away with such high 
hopes. 

It was late when Nedda grew calmer, soothed by 
his tenderness. They went to bed, but not to sleep. 
Though he lay very still, so as not to disturb her, 
all the terrible possibilities of their future held 
satanic carnival in his mind — how to shield her, 
how to support her while he was away, perhaps for a 
year, perhaps longer. Then the darkest thought of 
all confronted him again with sinister countenance 
— what if he were killed ! Nedda seemed to sleep 
at first, but later he knew that she was awake and 
that she was crying. He thought it best to make 
no effort at consolation ; perhaps she would drop 
off to sleep tired out. This she seemed to do after 
a time, and when he was sure of it, he praised God. 
She sleeps, he thought, my poor little wife. Her 
heart is with the angels. 

When it was morning he arose quietly and lighted 
the fire almost noiselessly and had the kettle 
boiling before Nedda awoke and got up hastily, 
looking very pinched and worn. She thanked him 
and called him her good Marco, but nothing was 
said of the subject that was in both their minds and 
lay so heavily across their hearts. And thus it was 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 9 

during the weeks and months that followed; while 
all the Italian quarter was chattering daily like a 
big family of magpies over the war and the pros- 
pects of Italy's becoming engaged, in this one little 
household the dreaded matter was rarely mentioned, 
though its dark shadow stood always beside them. 



II 

WINTER had passed and it was May, a beauti- 
ful, warm May for New England, like an 
Italian April. The time of Nedda's confinement 
was drawing near when Marco returned rather later 
than usual one evening from his work. He seemed 
very tired and quite dazed and Nedda thought he 
smelt somewhat strongly of wine, a thing she had 
never before noticed in him. After a little the truth 
came out. Italy was to enter the conflict and was 
summoning her reserves ; his class came first and 
might be called any day. He pulled a much tattered 
newspaper from his pocket and showed her the para- 
graph, of which, being in English, she could not read 
a word. 

Never had she seen him like this ; he seemed dis- 
mayed, broken, and hardly capable of facing the 
crisis, and then she understood how much he must 
have suffered for her in all these weary months of 
waiting and harrowing doubt. He muttered to him- 
self at times rather than spoke to her, saying over 
and over again something about " Italia " and " La 
Patria," and then he turned to her and drew her to 
him. So great was her distress for him that she 
forgot her own situation and, putting her arms 
around his shoulders and her face against his, prom- 
ised to be brave and tried to persuade him that all 
would be well with her until his return. 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 11 

Two days later that which she so much feared be- 
came a certainty — his class was called. It was an- 
nounced in Boston's weekly Italian newspaper, the 
" Gazzetta del Massachusetts." It appeared to her 
that her heart stopped beating when he told her. 
She was silent, stupefied by a paralyzing fear, which 
seemed to make speech or action impossible. She felt 
that, if she could only cry out, it would be a relief, 
but she was as though frozen, speechless, and words 
were now as impossible to her as tears. She went 
about her daily duties as usual, but almost uncon- 
sciously, for a pitiless, relentless voice was constantly 
repeating in her ear, " He is called ! He is called ! " 

She tried to pray, but she could not collect her 
thoughts sufficiently to do so. Before, in those days 
of suspense, of uncertainty, she had been able to find 
relief in tears and in prayers, but now she was so 
numb, so powerless to give expression to all that she 
felt, that she seemed to herself hardly to feel, hardly 
to live. She went into the Italian church near by, 
a quiet place where she had always found help, but 
its peace and sanctity seemed to mean nothing to her 
now and held no refuge from that terrible voice, 
" He is called ! He is called ! " 

When Marco was at home she did her best to talk 
and appear as usual, as though his going were a 
commonplace thing over which they need not worry. 
She purchased wool and made him new socks, mended 
and cleaned his clothes, and packed his small valise 
half a dozen times over before the time of parting 
came. 

Though Marco seemed to be reassured by his 
little wife's calmness and apparent resignation, he 



12 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

was not deceived. He knew how she was being tor- 
tured by apprehension and despair, and watching her 
uncomplaining anguish wrung his heart. He said 
nothing, however, there was so little to be said in 
the face of this great calamity ; so he bore it in a 
silence which was almost as undemonstrative as hers. 
Previously, when that which had come to pass was 
impending, he had talked much of the briefness of 
their possible separation, of the certainty of his 
return ; but now that they stood face to face with 
the fact of his departure for the front and all the 
dangers and obscurity of the future, words seemed 
meaningless. Around them the quarter was hum- 
ming like a hive, but here, in their tiny nest, these 
two young souls were mute and overwhelmed. 

Before his class was called Marco had debated 
many times in his mind whether it would not be 
better to turn his back on his native land and remain 
with Nedda. Now that the summons had come, how- 
ever, he knew that he could not disobey, and he felt 
that greatly as she suffered, Nedda would not have 
him deny that summons. They were Latins, these 
two, and love of country is the hall-mark of the 
Latin race. The call of a hundred generations was 
pulsing in his blood and he knew he must go. 

A visit to the Italian consul was followed by a 
short notification two days later that Marco would 
be sent back on Friday of the next week by the 
Cretic, which would sail from Boston direct to Pa- 
lermo and Naples; that was in just six days' time. 
Only on hearing this news did Nedda break the bonds 
of passivity which seemed to pin her down. When 
she comprehended that in a week's time she would be 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 13 

alone, she gave a low, half-sobbing moan and flung 
herself upon him, clinging to him and shuddering, 
and for a long time he found it impossible to calm 
her. When at last she grew quiet it hurt him to see 
her, there was such a look in her face. Her features 
seemed cut from wax, they were so immobile and 
colorless. Was this his little Nedda who, a few short 
weeks ago, had been all sparkle and cheerfulness and 
response ? 

He found relief in busying himself about whatever 
needed to be done in the way of preparation. He 
asked at the city Office of Works for the six months' 
leave of absence which was allowed in such cases 
from the department he was serving, and also trans- 
ferred his savings in the Italian bank near where 
they lived to Nedda's name, so that she could draw 
them out as she needed them. These gradual ac- 
cumulations amounted to two hundred and forty 
dollars, part of which he had brought from Italy. 
He drew just ten dollars to take with him for pocket 
money, which he got changed into Italian coin, and 
the balance of two hundred and thirty dollars re- 
mained for Nedda. He believed that this would more 
than suffice for her confinement and the first months 
with the little one, and after that he might be back, 
who knew? The smallness of the amount worried 
him, however. Two hundred and thirty dollars would 
have seemed a fortune to Marco in Italy, but he 
knew the cost of living in this strangely expensive 
land, and experience had changed his standard of 
values. 

Shortly before Marco left he drew Nedda very 
tenderly to his side one evening and talked to her 



14 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

of the future quite frankly and simply. He advised 
her as best he could what she was to do during his 
absence and in case he should never return. He 
counselled her above all to try to learn English, so 
that, if it became necessary later, she might the more 
readily find work. But at present, of course, there 
would be preparations for the baby to take up her 
time. He had made inquiries and gave her the ad- 
dress of an Italian doctor in the quarter whom she 
could send for when the hour of trial came. Then 
there was a woman living in the apartment below 
them whom they knew slightly and who might be of 
help. That would be better than a hospital, for 
Marco had a horror of hospitals, where he believed 
there was small consideration for the poor, and be- 
sides he had been told that, as a foreigner, it would 
be more difficult for Nedda to get admittance into 
one. 

He seemed to have foreseen everything in his love 
for her, and it was easy to see that he had given all 
the details serious thought. Above all he admon- 
ished her to beware of new friends here among 
strangers, for Marco had had many glimpses of life 
in the streets of this great place and he realized how 
young and inexperienced his little Nedda was. " And 
now," he concluded, " to-morrow is to be our last 
day together before I leave, and it must be our holi- 
day, dearest. We shall go down by the sea and sit 
there all day long and watch the waves and the sky, 
and it shall be a never-forgotten day for us both." 

So on the following day, a brilliant morning in 
early June, they took the daily excursion boat for one 
of the great beaches on the south shore, near the city, 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 15 

and after a delightful sail down the harbor they 
found themselves seated on the wide crescent of shin- 
ing sand. What happy hours those were, sitting 
there together in the sunlight, breathing in fresh 
salt breezes and watching occasional gulls pass by! 
Marco had decided well, for Nedda almost forgot 
her trouble; he seemed so near to her and the day 
was so sparkling and gay. They ate a fish dinner at 
a small restaurant, the only one open at that early 
season of the year, and they had their pictures taken 
together by a beach photographer, as a last souvenir. 
Marco promised that he would wear his copy next 
to his heart always, while Nedda made up her mind 
she would put hers beside her bed, just below the 
picture of the Madonna, where she could look at it 
a hundred times a day. And so it passed, that 
bright, cheerful, parting day between this boy and 
girl, husband and wife. 

It was only when they had returned to their little 
tenement in the North End that the shadow of ap- 
prehension began to deepen again and the fearful 
heartache of approaching parting blanched Nedda's 
cheeks and chilled her through and through. She 
clung to him despairingly all through the night, as 
though she could never let him leave her, for she was 
conscious that every hour was bringing her nearer 
to the moment of which she could not even bear to 
think. 

The vessel was to sail from South Boston at three 
o'clock, from the same dock at which they had ar- 
rived but little more than a year ago, so happy and 
hopeful and enthusiastic. Marco had asked the 
woman in the flat below, Mrs. Gallo, to go to the 



16 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

boat with them, so that Nedda might have someone 
to return home with her; and thus everything was 
arranged for the departure. Most of the reservists 
intended to march in a body to the wharf with a 
band, but Marco preferred to be with Nedda till the 
last moment possible, and so was not to join in the 
procession. 

The next morning was a time of bustle and excite- 
ment, which helped them both to bear up as the final 
hours ticked away. Two other reservists were leav- 
ing from the same tenement house, and there was 
much movement and many animated discussions on 
landings and stairs. Marco had to go to the con- 
sulate for his papers and other little preparations 
had to be made. Nedda was very calm and collected, 
more so than she had ever been; she seemed to be 
attending to the various details in an almost im- 
personal way. 

It was only when she had fastened the little ribbon 
rosette in Italian colors, which she had made, in 
Marco's buttonhole that she suddenly flung herself 
on his breast and clung to him in a passion of weep- 
ing. In a few hours she would be alone, alone in 
this strange land, so far from home and friends, and 
with no one to protect her and love her. The feeling 
of his big firm chest against her, of his strong man's 
arms around her, brought to her still more over- 
whelmingly the sense of her coming defencelessness 
and isolation. He, her Marco, to be taken so far 
away from her, into danger, perhaps to death, and 
she, inexperienced, alone, amid strangers, about to 
become a mother, with no work and no means of 
getting any, not even knowing the language of this 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 17 

country, what was to become of her? She shook 
against him in a convulsion of anguish and despair, 
holding him to her as though she could never let 
him go. " Marco mio, Marco caro. No, no, no," 
she repeated again and again, as though putting the 
thought of the inevitable far, far away from her. 
Marco was silent ; with a man's reticence he found 
words difficult and his own emotion was so great 
that he dared not trust himself to speak. He stroked 
the small head with his hard, work-worn hand, with 
a tenderness that seemed to soothe her, for after a 
few minutes her agitation quieted and she was cry- 
ing silently against his breast and nestling there as 
a tired child, whose weariness had found refuge in 
a safe shelter. 

A knock at the door interrupted them. It was 
one of the other reservists come to speak to Marco. 
He was glad of the intrusion, for it had seemed to 
him that he could never put her from him, and when 
he moved as though to do so she held to him so 
despairingly that each moment seemed to make it 
harder to release her. He kept the other man in 
conversation until he believed that the crisis had 
passed, and when the visitor had gone Nedda was 
again herself and already occupied in cooking the 
dinner. 

They left for the pier about two o'clock. Marco 
said there was no need to start earlier. The other 
woman, Mrs. Gallo, was with them when Marco 
turned the key in the kitchen door and gave it to 
Nedda and they went down the narrow stairway. 
Even in the dim light of the stair landing Marco 
saw that Nedda was very white, but she said noth- 



18 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

ing. and seemed to have regained her habitual com- 
posure. Marco was thankful, for he felt that he 
could not bear another scene like that of the morn- 
ing. If she threw herself again into his arms in 
such a way, he feared that he would desert country 
and duty and everything and remain with her. 

The long walk across the city to the wharf was a 
good thing for them both. It braced them and 
diverted their thoughts, and when they arrived at 
the pier the large crowd of reservists and those see- 
ing them off, who were already assembled there, made 
intimate talk impossible. Nedda clung very close to 
Marco, but she remained calm and for the most part 
silent. Marco was furthermore encumbered by his 
heavy valise, which acted as a barrier to hold them 
a little apart, and the presence of Mrs. Gallo, who 
was talkative, necessitated only general remarks. 
Soon the main body of reservists appeared marching 
onto the dock, headed by the band playing the 
" Hymn of Garibaldi " with deafening gusto, and this 
added to the excitement around them. Marco seemed 
to have caught some of it, for his eyes sparkled and 
Nedda thought with a pang that he had never looked 
more handsome. She had made up her mind to be 
brave if she could, and the music somehow gave her 
courage. 

The time was short now; most of the reservists 
were already aboard and the others were saying the 
final good-byes on all sides of them. Marco put 
down his valise and came quite close to Nedda. He 
took her hand and held it very firmly. She was 
trembling, but she remained quiet. Then the word 
" All aboard " was given and he stooped to give her 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 19 

the final kiss. He murmured in her ear a few words 
of such comfort as he could think of, " I will return 
soon. Do not fear, my dear one," and then he was 
gone. 

She had not been able to utter a syllable in reply, 
and after he had left her she remained motionless 
and silent, staring at the great ship as one fascinated 
and without realization of her whereabouts. It was 
not till the other woman touched her that she fully 
understood that it was over, that she was alone. The 
boat began to move out from its moorings amid a 
babel of cries and cheers, which almost drowned the 
Italian " Royal March " played by the band at its 
loudest. Nedda remained standing where she was, 
seemingly oblivious of it all. Mrs. Gallo thought she 
recognized Marco waving from the deck and pointed 
him out to Nedda. This seemed to rouse her, for she 
took off her shawl and waved it back at him, but still 
she acted almost as one in sleep. When the vessel 
had passed out of sight and most persons had 
trooped off the dock, Nedda yet remained standing 
and gazing ahead of her, where the great black mon- 
ster had been which had swallowed up her Marco. 
Finally her companion took her by the arm and 
turned away, and Nedda obeyed mechanically and 
accompanied her. 



Ill 

HOW she got home Nedda never knew, for she pos- 
sessed no distinct recollection of returning, and 
the next thing she realized she was alone in her little 
bedroom, on her knees, praying to the picture of the 
Madonna over the bed. How long she prayed she 
had no idea; she was not sure whether she prayed 
all the time. Finally her knees ached and she crawled 
onto her bed and lay there in a misery of weeping 
and despair. At last she fell asleep through sheer 
exhaustion, and when she awoke it was dark and 
only a faint glimmer of light from the court below 
came through the window. Her head ached and 
throbbed and she had no desire to get up ; then she 
slept again, a troubled sleep of unhappy dreams, 
and did not awake until morning. 

She was hungry and faint, so she got up and built 
a fire and made herself some coffee. She could hardly 
swallow it, however, and felt as though she had not 
the courage to face her lonely life and would be 
glad to crawl back to bed again and lie there till 
she died. 

At eight o'clock Mrs. Gallo came to see her, and 
this forced her a little out of herself. The good 
woman was apparently shocked by Nedda's appear- 
ance and in her rough way tried to mother her. This 
would never do. It was washing day and Nedda 
must get on with her washing at once. What would 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 21 

Marco say if he saw her like this? Thus by her 
practical but kindly sympathy the older woman 
forced the younger to face the realities of life, bitter 
though they were. 

It was days, however, before Nedda became accus- 
tomed to the loneliness and sense of isolation and 
the vague, indefinable fears which haunted her. She 
tried to be brave, but she was little more than a girl 
and it was hard to be strong all alone. Many times 
she lay sobbing on her bed at night until she fell 
asleep worn out, only to wake up even more lonely 
and heart-weary than when she went to bed. 

She found that she was happiest when she tried 
to follow Marco in her thoughts and to feel almost 
as though she were with him. Now he was in the 
middle of the ocean, probably sitting on deck smok- 
ing. Was he thinking of her, longing for her as 
much as she longed for him? Was he so unhappy 
as she was? She prayed not. Now he was in the 
Mediterranean, where it was warm and sunny and 
beautiful. He must be quite cheerful there, looking 
out on the sparkling waters. By this time he was at 
Palermo, back in their own lovely Sicily. He was 
landing now. She wondered whether he had been 
allowed to go home for a day before joining the colors. 
Perhaps so. He might be even then in their little 
home town among the hills, looking down, as from 
the gallery of a theatre, the beautiful sweeping valley 
of the Conca d'Oro to distant Palermo, yellow in the 
sunshine, and the blue, blue sea beyond. Of course 
he was with their relatives and friends ; how glad 
they must be to see him and how they would want 
to know all about her. She wondered whether he 



22 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

would tell anyone her secret. Perhaps he would con- 
fide in her old grandmother. She rather hoped he 
would. She wanted someone whom she loved to know 
of her great approaching happiness and that she 
would not be quite alone in this far-away land. He 
would surely inform the dear old priest who had 
married them, and maybe the priest would write 
her a letter full of good counsel and help, for he 
could write very well; she had seen his writing, in 
an even, clear hand, in the parish book. In such 
musings poor little Nedda found some solace in her 
loneliness, though these thoughts of Marco and home 
often ended in a realization of her own position and 
in tears. 

However, the days wore on and slowly but surely 
the great event was drawing near. Mrs. Gallo said 
that Nedda must go to see a physician and arrange 
with him for his assistance when the hour arrived. 
So, accompanied by that good woman, Nedda went 
to see the one whose address Marco had given her. 
They climbed a dusty stairway in a building on a 
near-by thoroughfare. The doctor was seated in 
a rather dingy office, surrounded by several men 
cronies, all of whom were apparently deep in a politi- 
cal or war discussion when the two women entered. 
As soon as he comprehended that he had a patient 
he made a sign to the other men, who withdrew into 
an adjoining room. 

The doctor was fat, middle-aged, easy-going, and 
very Italian, with an intelligent head and a kindly, 
open face. He asked Nedda a good many questions, 
some of which seemed of a more general than a medi- 
cal nature, for he was evidently a curious man, who 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 23 

took a personal interest in his patients. What was 
her age? Seventeen, a mere baby; they ought not 
to have let her marry so young. Married in Italy ; 
ah, yes, that was the way they did it in Italy. When 
did she expect the baby? A month; so soon! 
Where in Italy was she from ? Sicily, yes ; she had 
the accent. The good man seemed in no hurry to 
terminate the conversation with this very young and 
very pretty little patient. 

Finally, as he stopped to relight his cigar, Nedda 
found courage to ask him the momentous ques- 
tion. How much would he charge her? She hated 
to do it, but she knew she must, with so little money 
in the bank and Marco so far away. The doctor 
eyed her shrewdly, but not in an unkindly manner. 
How much did her husband earn? She told him 
that her Marco had already been called home to Italy 
to join the army and that she was alone and had 
very little money. He took his cigar out of his 
mouth and made an exclamation — it sounded like 
an imprecation against the war — and muttered 
something about her being too young to be left in 
this way. He considered a moment and said in a 
voice which he intended to be very matter of fact: 
" My charge will be ten dollars and your husband 
can pay me when he comes back and gets to work 
again." 

Nedda was very grateful and began to try to 
thank him for his goodness, while Mrs. Gallo also 
became voluble in his praise; but he cut them short 
rather abruptly, saying, " When you need me, send 
for me and I shall be there." With that he got up 
from his chair and called to his compatriots in the 



24 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

other room, which was a sign that the visit was at 
an end. Nedda and Mrs. Gallo arose and left the 
room as the three men returned, still in the midst 
of their discussion, in which the doctor immediately 
joined. 

Nedda was greatly relieved by the thought that 
she would be protected in her hour of trial by the 
old doctor, for her woman's intuition told her that 
he was kindness itself, and his offer to trust her for 
his services until Marco came back still further eased 
her mind. She even found it in her heart to sing 
a little as she sat at her window, busy making some 
very diminutive garments, sewing away with that 
pleasure which most Italian women find in the use 
of their needle, and with a look on her face which 
comes only once in a woman's life. A subject for 
an etching, this young girl, as she sat in the half- 
light of the tiny room, bending patiently over her 
work, with graceful dip of neck and shoulders and 
an expression of combined tenderness, submission, 
and expectancy on her face. 

The baby was born at night, and within a couple 
of hours mother and child were pronounced to be 
doing well and the doctor had left them in the care 
of Mrs. Gallo, with a promise to return after break- 
fast. Mrs. Gallo was more voluble than ever in her 
raptures over Nedda and the baby, whom she an- 
nounced as an undoubted prize-winner, and in her 
encomiums on the good doctor, who she declared 
must become the baby's godfather. 

It was a fine strong boy, weighing nearly nine 
pounds and very hungry and active, who appeared 
upon the scene, apparently determined to have a 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 25 

share in all that went on about him. Nedda was 
too happy for words and could not bear to give him 
up again when, after some hours, he was finally put 
in her arms. Until she was allowed to have him, 
however, Mrs. Gallo appropriated him and made a 
great to-do about his bath and dressing and attend- 
ing to him and seemed indeed almost as pleased by 
his arrival as was Nedda. The poor woman was a 
good soul, and the coming of the baby took her back 
to her own days of young motherhood and warmed 
her heart by the remembrance, besides giving her 
something to do; for she was a lonely old creature, 
living with a married daughter, who gave her little 
consideration or affection. 

Two days after baby came Nedda sat up in a 
chair, and within a week she was up daily, moving 
about her tiny flat much as usual. She did not as 
yet go out a great deal, however, as Mrs. Gallo was 
doing Nedda's marketing for her. The baby was 
the personification of health and vigor and divided 
his time between " yum-yum " and " do-do " with the 
keenest satisfaction. He seldom cried, but when he 
did he entered into the full spirit of the performance 
and did justice to a very sound pair of lungs. 

The christening took place when he was about a 
week old, in the basement chapel of the near-by Ital- 
ian church. Mrs. Gallo and the doctor were the spon- 
sors. The former, carrying the baby, went with 
Nedda to the church, and the doctor met them there 
at the appointed hour. The priest, a busy man with 
a large parish and many duties, kept them waiting 
a few minutes, during which time the baby protested 
vigorously at these unusual proceedings, but through- 



26 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

out the actual christening he behaved perfectly and 
Nedda was quite the proudest of little mothers. As 
soon as the service was concluded the doctor was 
obliged to hurry away, after kissing his new godson 
and pinching Nedda's cheek in a fatherly way. So 
Nedda paid the christening fee and returned home 
with Mrs. Gallo, who still insisted on carrying the 
little Michele for her, and indeed mothered Nedda 
quite as much as she did the infant. 

Nedda's happiness with her baby would have been 
a beautiful thing to the onlooker, if there had been 
anyone to see it. She was radiant in this new-found 
joy. She prayed to her little picture of the Madonna 
with devout thankfulness for the goodness which had 
given her a bambino to comfort her just when her 
heart was breaking for Marco. She spent hours look- 
ing at this tiny pink and white bundle, telling herself 
over and over again that it was a boy and that it 
was really hers, even running from her work just to 
look at him and caress him and pat his little face 
and play a moment with his little toes. His eyes 
were like Marco's, great, dark, lustrous eyes, and 
his nose too was like Marco's, or would be when he 
was older, she was sure. His mouth was like hers, 
with a distinct arch to it, but then a mouth did not 
much matter; it was just to kiss, and while she 
kissed his mouth she could look at his eyes, Marco's 
eyes. How she loved it, her baby. How near she 
felt to Marco, so far away, when she had her boy, 
his boy, in her arms. Did the Madonna in the picture 
love hers more? Could any woman love hers more, 
she wondered. Did any other woman, save the dear 
Madonna, ever have so beautiful a baby? How could 




Nedda's Madonna 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 27 

there be another baby so beautiful? Was he not 
Marco's baby, and was not Marco, her Marco, the 
handsomest and bravest fellow in all the world — 
her husband, her Marco, now fighting so coura- 
geously for his country? 

Thus, while she hugged her baby close, her thoughts 
would revert to Marco. Was he safe? Was he well? 
She had been told that they fed the soldiers gener- 
ously. How happy she was for that; he was not 
hungry. He must be at the front by now, after 
nearly three months' training, and it would be cold 
where he was, up in the north of Italy among the 
mountains. She hoped he had received and was 
wearing the woollen scarf and socks she had knitted 
for him. If he had only written she would be relieved ; 
but as Marco did not write easily she knew she must 
not expect it. If he were ill or wounded he would 
surely send her word or get someone to do so for 
him; so of course he was well. She must be patient 
and some day news would reach her, or better still 
Marco would return to her, never to leave her again. 

In such musings, hopings, joys, and apprehen- 
sions the long weary days had passed for little Nedda, 
while she grew strong again from her confinement 
and fell into the routine of her new life. 

With all the joy of the baby and all the warmth 
and consolation it brought into her life there was, 
nevertheless, one ever-darkening shadow resting on 
her — the small sum of money on deposit in the 
bank was steadily shrinking. There was just one 
hundred and twenty-six dollars left and Marco had 
been gone only a little over three months. When the 
money was gone? When it was gone? The words 



28 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

kept repeating themselves as a horrible refrain, 
drumming through her head with tireless insistence. 
There seemed no answer, nothing to be done or 
thought of, only to wait. What could she do here, 
so alone in this strange land and with her baby need- 
ing so much of her time, so much of her care? 

She lay awake nights, and the danger seemed to 
grow blacker and blacker, nearer and nearer. She 
tried to shut it out, to think only of the present, 
and to feel sure that Marco would return before the 
money was all spent; but the terrible thoughts and 
fears would come back to her and seemed crowding 
in on her ever closer and closer and more menacingly. 
She seemed to be suffocating, and so great was her 
sense of danger and apprehension during those dark 
night hours that she thought she must cry out or 
take up her baby and run away to some refuge where 
she could find help. She realized, however, that there 
was no help, that she was alone among strangers, 
and that she must face the danger alone and wait 
and hope and try to be brave. 

It was now autumn and growing cold. There was 
more coal to be bought to keep the two little rooms 
warm for baby, and coal was becoming very, very 
dear. Food also was growing much higher, but when 
she tried to eat only a little she began to lose weight 
and color. Mrs. Gallo, meeting her one day, noticed 
her pale appearance, and suspecting the cause with 
the sure intuition of the poor, told her that she must 
have plenty of good food if she wished to continue 
to nurse the child. The woman spoke the truth and 
Nedda knew it, for worry and so little to eat were be- 
ginning to tell on her and she was finding it more diffi- 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 29 

cult to give the baby nourishment. At the sugges- 
tion of not being able to continue so doing an icy 
hand seemed to grasp Nedda's heart and she began 
to force her appetite, despite her worry and pre- 
occupation and the ever-recurring thought that 
everything she ate brought them appreciably nearer 
to want and perhaps to starvation. 

Finally she came to a resolution which seemed to 
promise some respite. She would change her two 
rooms for a single room on the inner court of the 
building and thus save money for coal. In her youth 
and inexperience she did not understand that a domi- 
cile without any direct sunlight would be the very 
worst thing for her baby. He seemed so strong and 
healthy that she could not imagine him as ill. Her 
present two tiny rooms, facing on the outer and 
larger court of the building, from which considerable 
sunshine entered for some three or four hours of the 
day, were at the rate of fourteen dollars a month; 
whereas a single room, with an alcove for the bed, 
facing on the narrow inner court and wholly with- 
out sunshine, was only about nine dollars a month: 
a saving of five dollars a month. There was also 
the cost of the gas as measured by the metre, but 
of that she had been so sparing that it was but a 
very trifling item. In addition there was finally the 
rental of the few pieces of furniture in the place — 
the chairs, table, bed, bedding, stove, and kitchen 
utensils. These several items — room rent, gas, and 
the rent of the furniture — were collected weekly, for 
in the North End, among the immigrant population, 
Shylock, whether Jew or Gentile, is at every turn and 
exploits necessity with the relentlessness of the hawk. 



IV 

THE tenement into which Nedda moved was indeed 
a wretched hole, dark, musty, and cheerless. It 
had been left dirty also by the last tenant, though 
Nedda soon had it clean. It consisted of a room 
about fourteen feet square with an alcove for a bed, 
the main room looking through two small windows, 
placed together on one side, into a narrow court, or 
more properly a sort of well, a few yards square. 
As Nedda's lodging was on the second story of a five- 
story building, one can imagine how much light 
percolated down this narrow, interior well from 
above to the room which she occupied. The place 
was in a semi-light or twilight during the greater 
part of the day and by three o'clock was practically 
in darkness. 

She made the best of such quarters, however, try- 
ing to keep a brave heart in the thought that now her 
money would last somewhat longer. She made the 
bed and tucked the baby up comfortably, and as 
soon as the stove was set up she had a fire going 
and occupied herself with her small duties. 

Mrs. Gallo came to see her, and though the good 
woman deplored the discomfort and cheerlessness 
of Nedda's new lodging, she recognized the need 
of the change from what Nedda told her; for she 
too was a poor woman, dependent, in fact, upon 
her married daughter for shelter, and poverty but 
too well understands the sacrifices of poverty. 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 31 

The baby's godmother was the more sorry at 
Nedda's new situation because she had come to tell 
her that she was about to move away from Boston. 
The warm-hearted woman dreaded leaving " her dear 
little one," as she called Nedda, so alone and unbe- 
friended, and she shrank still more from the necessity 
of telling her that she was so soon going away. Her 
son-in-law had found other work, which he preferred, 
in Worcester, and so the family were to go there at 
the end of the week. 

Nedda's grief at the news was pitiful. Mrs. Gallo 
was indeed her only friend and confidante in this 
strange land, and the good woman had been so pro- 
tecting and helpful in all the sad months since Marco 
went, especially when the baby came, that Nedda had 
begun to regard her almost as a parent. She wept 
bitterly at first, but when Mrs. Gallo, who could 
not bear to see such distress, told her that, if 
she cried herself sick, the baby would suffer, the 
poor little mother controlled herself by a great 
effort and set herself to face this new sorrow as she 
had met all the suffering of the past months. 

The kind old creature found time during the three 
days before her departure to run in often to see 
Nedda and also gave her many little things for her- 
self and the baby from her own scanty possessions, 
combined with much good advice and motherly affec- 
tion, so that the hours before parting were easier for 
Nedda. 

Though she had promised Mrs. Gallo to be brave 
and not to weep when she had gone, but to keep busy 
and hopeful for the baby's sake, yet when the good 
soul had departed and Nedda faced the fact that she 



32 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

was now alone, without anyone near her to whom 
she could go for aid or sympathy, she threw herself 
on her bed in the lonely room in a flood of tears such 
as she had not given way to since the day Marco 
left her. 

How long she lay there weeping and trembling 
and trying to pray the good Madonna for help and 
strength she never knew, but she was suddenly re- 
called to outer things by a baby's wail. It was her 
darling appealing to her ; he was hungry and perhaps 
cold, and his little quavering cry struck to her heart 
at once and steeled her with a new resolve. He 
needed her, her baby, and she must be resolute because 
of him. She got up at once, went to him, warmed him, 
and nursed him, and when he had fallen asleep again, 
satisfied and comfortable, Nedda washed her face, 
combed her hair, and made up her mind to be coura- 
geous and calm again, as she had tried to be before. 
Marco, who was fighting so bravely far, far away, 
would expect her to be brave too, and she realized 
that she must be tranquil for her baby's sake. 
Marco must not find the baby ill when he returned. 
She must show him how strong and patient she, a 
soldier's wife, had been through all these long 
months of separation. So she went about her duties, 
only wishing that she had more things to do to oc- 
cupy her mind and keep the sad thoughts away. 

To-day was the day to go to the bank. How she 
dreaded it, for with coal and provisions growing 
almost daily higher, it was hard to spend little, even 
with the reduced rent, and each time she drew more 
money away from her slender store she felt her heart 
sink with renewed foreboding. There was not quite 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 33 

sixty dollars left in the bank and it was now Novem- 
ber, with winter just coming on, and people said 
that the war would surely last all winter. Try as 
she might she could not live at less than thirty-two 
or thirty-three dollars a month, and in two months 
at the longest she knew she would be destitute. 

She made up her mind to write to Marco in the 
care of his regiment and tell him everything. She 
was most reluctant to worry him, as she was sure he 
must be very much occupied and perhaps even ill 
or wounded. But she felt that he was still her 
natural protector, though the ocean divided them, 
and probably he could explain to the government, 
being in Italy, and get help for her and the baby. 

Some time previously, not long after the birth of 
her baby, she had gone to the consul's office, as 
Marco had told her to do, and applied for the 
monthly relief allowance to the family of a soldier 
at the front. After consulting the records it was 
explained to her, however, that inasmuch as it ap- 
peared that Marco had left Italy before he had 
reached the age for his military service, she was not 
entitled to any such aid, because his present war 
service counted only for his regular military service. 
Small as is the amount allowed monthly to those 
reservists' families who are recipients of the same 
from the Italian government, which in this supreme 
struggle has very many calls on its resources, and 
wholly inadequate as this sum is for their support 
here in America, yet it would have been of much 
help to Nedda, and to find that she was not to re- 
ceive it was a great disappointment. 

While they were making the matter plain to her 



34 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

she had seen with unsparing clearness of vision that 
all that now stood between her and starvation was 
the money still remaining in the bank, though fast 
melting away. As soon as it was exhausted, which 
would be before long, she would be forced into the 
street with her baby and obliged to beg for bread, 
like the very poor sometimes did in Italy ; but even 
that life she knew would not be possible in the cold 
New England winter. When she had tried to pic- 
ture her condition to those at the consul's office, they 
had told her very kindly and patiently that there 
were a great many other Italian women in Boston 
in exactly the same plight and that they were 
unfortunately not in a position to give such relief 
unless the government allowed it. They had also 
advised her to try immediately to find work. But 
how could she do so in this strange city, where 
she knew only a few words of the language and with 
her baby so young and still nursing and unable to 
be left alone for long at a time? She felt it was im- 
possible, and she had come away from the consulate 
with a bitter feeling of desperation and hopelessness 
and her eyes full of angry tears. 

So she wrote to Marco, and though she tried to 
make her story brave and confident and to keep the 
tears from falling on the page, it was a poor, blotted, 
and hardly legible little scrawl when she had done. 
She knew Marco could write but very poorly and 
even signed his name with difficulty. She hardly 
hoped for an answer from him ; indeed, he had not 
yet replied to her news announcing the birth of 
their baby. Still she trusted that, when he received 
word from her of her situation, he would tell his 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 35 

superiors about it and persuade " la patria " to 
send her some assistance. It seemed to her that 
they could not let her starve with her baby, when 
her Marco had been among the first to return at 
the call of Italy and was even now fighting in her 
defence. 

As soon as she had dispatched the letter she was 
relieved, but before long the old fears and forebod- 
ings returned and she found it difficult to keep from 
worrying or to sleep at night. What if the letter 
never reached Marco? What if he were unable to 
persuade them to aid her? The consul had said 
that the country was giving all the help it could 
possibly afford and that there were very many 
others like her to be assisted. What if Marco were 
ill, too ill to read what she had written? What 
if — if he were dead? One poor woman in a near-by 
street had only just been notified of the death of her 
husband at the front, many weeks after it had 
occurred. 

One after another these thoughts crowded in on 
her until she lived in a misery of dread and uncer- 
tainty. She strove to shut out such fears, to con- 
vince herself that all would be well, but continually 
they returned to her, these terrible apprehensions, 
until she felt that her courage was breaking and 
that she was becoming completely unnerved. 

In her desperation she finally brought herself to 
write to her relatives in the little mountain village 
above Palermo, in the hope that they might send her 
something. Her parents were dead and she addressed 
the missive to her old grandmother, who had always 
been so good and so kind that, next to Marco, she 



36 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

seemed the best person Nedda had ever known. 
Grandmother could not read, but Nedda knew that 
the priest would read it all aloud to them. 

She was very loath to appeal to them, for she 
knew how poor they were and she feared that, in 
this time of war, they must be even more in need; 
but when she looked at her baby and thought of the 
fate which hung over them both, she hesitated no 
longer. There in Sicily, where all things grew and 
flourished in the sunshine, they would not starve, 
however poor they might be; while here in winter 
time in this strange cold land, without money and 
without work, she and her baby were faced with 
nothing less than starvation. 

It was an ill-expressed, ill-written, little letter 
when she had finished it, even less presentable than 
that to Marco, though she had tried her best and 
rewritten it several times; but she was so shaken 
and wretched and preoccupied by anxiety and hesita- 
tion that she could not seem to think what to say 
or how to make them understand her circumstances. 
Blots would come on the paper and tears too, strive 
as she would to be calm, and the more she tried to 
write well and clearly, the harder it seemed. At last 
it was done, however, and posted, and for a little 
while she again felt more cheerful, though the old 
fears still haunted her with the persistence of bad 
dreams. 

She was becoming pale and thin, and when she 
caught sight of herself in the glass, all she could 
see were great, black, staring eyes, which seemed 
to have grown very, very large, looking at her from 
a drawn, pinched little face which she hardly recog- 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 37 

nized as her own. Her condition, too, was beginning 
to react on the child, which had grown white and thin 
also and was restless and troublesome. Once or twice, 
after she had been crying and had then nursed the 
baby, it vomited, and she realized that her own agita- 
tion was the cause of its indigestion. She tried to get 
it to take cow's milk, but it refused, after having been 
nearly four months at the breast, and when she 
finally persuaded it to do so, it was more distressed 
than ever and vomited again. 

She made up her mind that she must be self-con- 
trolled and must wholly banish all unhappy thoughts 
and fears, if her baby were to be saved, and by such 
a continuous effort of will as she had never exerted 
before in her life she forced herself for the time 
being to dismiss from her mind all consideration of 
the future. She felt as if she were held in a vise, as 
though she were being slowly crushed by some re- 
lentless power, but she compelled herself to continue 
calm and self-repressed. The strain, however, was 
telling on her, even more seriously than when she 
had been able to relieve her grief in tears, and the 
child continued ailing and restless. 



NEDDA saw that she must get work before it was 
too late and they were penniless, so she went 
again to the consul's office to ask where she could 
apply for it; if possible something that she could 
take home with her to do. They gave her the ad- 
dresses of several employment agencies in the city. 
She returned home and dressed herself as neatly as 
she could and, discarding her head shawl, wearing for 
the occasion a fur cap of Marco's, to look more 
American, found her way to the first place on the list. 

She entered a dingy room full of waiting women 
who seemed to eye her so ferociously from every 
corner that she wanted to flee, but she remembered 
her baby and went on into a second room or 
office, where a thin, sharp-featured woman was 
seated at a desk. She addressed this person as well 
as she could in her broken English, but before she 
had uttered a dozen words she was interrupted by a 
rasping voice, saying, " You must learn to speak 
English first; we do not place foreigners who do 
not speak English." The tone was so decided that 
she had not the courage to reply, and with a mur- 
mured " Grazie " (Thank you) she retreated, fol- 
lowed by a dozen pairs of relentless eyes as she 
passed through the outer room and onto the street. 

How she longed to fly back to her poor little room 
and hide her shame and disappointment in the pil- 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 39 

lows of her bed, but the thought of her baby nerved 
her with renewed determination, and she looked for 
the next address which the consul's clerk had given 
her. It was a long way off in a different part of the 
town, but the walk did her good and seemed to soothe 
her and give her more self-control. 

On entering the agency she found what seemed 
to her a less hostile atmosphere, and the person in 
charge was more considerate in her manner. She 
asked Nedda's age and nationality, whether she was 
married or single, and listened patiently while Nedda 
found words to convey brokenly that she would like 
to find work such as sewing which she could do at 
home. When Nedda had managed to make herself 
understood, the woman in charge replied that, al- 
though she did not as a rule place Italians, she 
would get such work for Nedda, if anyone applied 
to have it so done, and took her name and address. 
She did not, however, encourage the little applicant 
very much and told her that she would notify her 
if she had anything for her. 

Nedda left the office with despair in her heart 
and again consulted her list. There was but one 
name remaining thereon, an address on Tremont 
Street. She set out for the same at once, without 
giving herself time to think or to lose courage. 

When she reached the agency she found it full of 
persons looking for employment, and after she had 
made her wants known she was told that they did 
not consider girls wishing to take sewing home, but 
that, if she wanted to " go out " as " help," she could 
wait in the outer room and perhaps they might have 
something for her later. The thought of working 



40 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

out as a domestic was strange and wholly repugnant 
to Nedda — she a married woman ! What would 
Marco say? In the hope, however, that she might 
find some such service for part only of each day, 
which would permit her to go back to her baby when 
necessary, she sat down among a number of other 
women of the domestic class, none of them Italians, 
feeling more lonely and ill at ease than at any time 
in her life. She wanted more than ever before to 
flee away and seek some deserted place where she 
could find relief in tears, but she realized that she 
must remain there and keep calm, for was not this 
perhaps her last chance to get anything to do? 

After a long wait she was called in to interview a 
rather coarse woman who wanted a maid of all work 
for a lodging house, but as soon as Nedda began to 
reply to questions in her halting English she was 
dismissed as impossible. After another long interval 
she was again called in to confront a more ladylike 
person, who immediately demanded her references, 
and when it appeared that Nedda had none, the 
prospective employer drew back in horrified surprise 
and Nedda was at once informed by the woman at 
the desk that without references they could not 
undertake to place her. She produced the piece of 
consulate letter paper on which the consul's assist- 
ant had written the names of the various employ- 
ment agencies, but that seemed to have no effect on 
her interlocutors, and she was summarily turned 
away. 

She stumbled down the dark stairs into the street 
with anger and mutiny in her heart at the bloodless 
injustice of a fate which had placed her and her 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 41 

innocent baby in this horrible position from which 
there seemed no escape. They must starve then, 
here in this cold, strange, friendless place, because 
her Marco had gone back at the call of duty to fight 
for his country. Where was the good Madonna 
that she allowed such things? Surely she must know 
all of Nedda's trouble or else prayers were of no 
avail. Terrible thoughts crossed Nedda's mind, 
thoughts that made her shudder and feel guilty, 
even as they came to her. Was there a Madonna 
who protected and loved poor young mothers like 
Nedda, or was it all a delusion and was the Madonna 
so very far away that she could not hear, could not 
know, could not see those who so needed her? 

She walked along the street aimlessly, hardly 
thinking of her direction, intent on the conflict that 
was raging within her. It was dusk and the street 
lamps and shop windows were lighting up, but 
Nedda kept on, regardless of her surroundings. 
She collected herself enough to know that she was 
going towards her home, and that was all. 

Suddenly she felt a hand upon her arm and a 
voice which seemed very near and yet very far off 
said: "Where are you going, little girl? Don't 
you want to come and have a drink with me? " She 
drew away as though she had been stung, for she 
had lived long enough in a large city to know the 
Various phases of street life, and she understood 
very well what such a salutation and invitation 
meant. But with the natural revulsion of a thor- 
oughly innocent and good woman, she instinctively 
stepped back and hastened her pace. The speaker, 
however, continued by her side, and after a moment 



42 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

he began again. " You don't look over-flush with 
money, little girl, and if you '11 go with me for the 
evening and be good to me, there 's ten dollars in it 
for you." 

Nedda's heart stood still. Ten dollars, enough 
to keep her baby and herself for nearly a fortnight, 
to be made in a few hours: and she was almost 
destitute; in a month they would have nothing. 
How easy it would be to support them both in such 
a way ; only once in every few days would the sacri- 
fice be necessary. She shuddered at the horror of it. 
But it meant safety, safety for her baby, a sunny 
room to live in, and peace of mind, and the baby 
would grow rosy and fat again. As for herself, 
what did it matter, if she could save her child? She 
heard the voice still persuading her, but she was 
not listening to what it said; she was thinking, try- 
ing to think it all out, and in desperate haste, for 
herself. 

Then in a flash she thought of Marco, her Marco, 
her husband, so strong and good and true, and at 
the remembrance of him and of their love for each 
other her soul revolted from the creature at her 
side, and she flung off the hand that rested on her 
arm with an exclamation of indignation and hurried 
on through the crowded street. In a moment she 
understood intuitively that she was alone, the 
man had ceased to accompany her, and she felt a 
sense of relief, as though she had escaped from 
something poisonous and pestilential. 



VI 

WHEN Nedda reached home, faint and quiver- 
ing from the emotions of the past few hours, 
her attention, as she climbed the dark stairs, was ar- 
rested by a baby's cry. She recognized it at once 
with a mother's intuition; it was her little one cry- 
ing. She hastened into the room and took him in 
her arms ; his eyes were very bright and he looked 
flushed and restless. She placed him at her breast, 
but he refused nourishment, which surprised her, as 
he had been a number of hours alone, longer than 
she had ever left him before. She tried to quiet him, 
but could not; he tossed uneasily in her arms, his 
cries gradually quavering off into a weak, convulsive 
sort of sob, which gripped at her heart strings and 
tortured her with apprehension. For with fear and 
misgiving she realized the truth. Her baby was ill 
and suffering, perhaps very ill. She knew she must 
find help, must go for the doctor. She thanked the 
dear Madonna that the doctor was so kind and good, 
for he would help her; she knew that. Having put 
the baby back on the bed, she started immediately, 
but its cries, now louder, now subdued into a low, 
plaintive wail, tortured her as she descended the 
stairs, and seemed pulling her back, until she fairly 
ran out to the street in her agitation. 

She hardly knew how she reached the well-remem- 
bered office, but when she found herself there it was 



44 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

closed. The proprietor of a small tobacco shop on 
the ground floor told her that it was after the doc- 
tor's office hours and he had gone home; in fact the 
tobacconist had not seen him pass for several days 
and thought he might be ill. Where was his home? 
The man did not remember exactly, but after con- 
sulting the directory he gave her the address. It 
was some distance away; too far to walk, the man 
suggested. She answered that she could walk, and 
without a moment's delay was out of the door and 
on her way. 

It was a long stretch to Charlestown, over bridges 
and car tracks, but Nedda counted neither effort nor 
distance and sped on almost at a run over the dark, 
uneven pavements. She had but one thought, one 
hope, one prayer — to save her baby. 

After many mistakes and inquiries, assisted luckily 
by the doctor's address written on a piece of paper 
by the tobacconist, she found his home, a modest 
lodging in a tenement of the better class. She rang 
the bell, and even knocked at the door in her im- 
patience, which she could no longer restrain. After 
what seemed an interminable interval the door was 
opened by an elderly woman in a dressing gown, who 
seemed to divine Nedda's quest before she spoke and 
sadly informed her that the doctor was very ill, had 
been so for nearly a week, and could see no patients. 

Nedda gripped at the door casing and felt as 
though she would fall. The good woman, who un- 
derstood her visitor's distress, went to a desk in the 
adjoining room and wrote an address on a piece of 
paper, which she gave to Nedda. It was the name 
of another doctor. " Go to him," she told the pale 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 45 

and agitated girl, " he will assist you." Nedda 
thanked her as best she could and hastened away. 

The other practitioner lived back in the city proper 
and it was again a long walk. Nedda stumbled sev- 
eral times, for her strength was beginning to fail. 
She had not eaten since morning and her day had 
been one of constant strain and suspense. 

When she reached the physician's house he was 
out on a case, and Nedda waited in his office more 
than an hour before he arrived. She explained about 
her baby as well as she was able, for the doctor was 
not an Italian. He at once began to make difficulties 
about going out again so late; it was nearly nine 
o'clock and, he told her, he had had nothing to eat 
since luncheon. Could not the child wait until the 
morning? Was it so very ill? But Nedda insisted. 

From her description he said he judged it was 
only a cold the baby was suffering from, perhaps a 
little indigestion. He would give her some medicine 
for the child, which would lower the fever, if any, 
and induce sleep ; and he would be there in the morn- 
ing. Nedda, however, still insisted that he should 
come at once. 

In order to discourage her still further he added 
that his fee was never less than three dollars for a 
visit so late at night as this ; for he saw her excited 
state and believed she was in a nervous condition and 
had overestimated the seriousness of the baby's illness. 
Nedda stood aghast. Three dollars, and she had so 
little money now between her and starvation. Then 
she seemed to hear again the feeble wail of her little 
one as she had fled down the stairs, and she clutched 
at the doctor's sleeve and appealed to him to come. 



46 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

Her tone and manner convinced him that she would 
not be put off, and putting on his coat and hat with 
due deliberation and placing a few medicines in his 
handbag, he followed her out into the street. So 
fast was her pace he found it difficult to keep up 
with her. He made several attempts to stop her so 
that they might board a car, but she did not seem 
to hear him or notice him, so intent was she on her 
rapid passage through the streets. So, muttering 
something under his breath not over-complimentary 
to " these excitable Italians," he followed her lead. 
From the doctor's office to the North End was not 
a great distance luckily, and in a quarter of an hour 
they were at Nedda's lodging. 

The baby was no longer crying and seemed to 
sleep, but as soon as the doctor took it up it began 
to give little convulsive cries and moans. He looked 
at it gravely, and Nedda, who was intently watching 
him, felt her heart sink as she saw the lines deepen 
on his face, for she knew that her fears were but too 
well justified and that her baby was really ill. 

The doctor gave the tiny sufferer some medicine 
and then stayed to watch the effect. It was evident 
that he thought the case critical. After about thirty 
minutes he gave the child another dose and shortly 
afterwards expressed himself as satisfied. The little 
thing was now perfectly quiet and lay breathing easily 
and its face was less flushed. 

" Give this medicine again in two hours, just as 
you have seen me give it," he explained to Nedda, 
" and keep the room warm. Don't let your baby get 
chilled again by allowing the temperature to fall in 
this room. You must not try to save coal or you 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 47 

will lose your child," he said, stirring the grate of 
the stove and throwing on some more coal. " If the 
child grows worse again, send for me. Here is my 
telephone number." He gave her his card. " Any 
apothecary will telephone to me for you. I do not 
think he will be worse again," he continued, " and I 
will come back in the morning." 

He picked up his hat and bag and started to leave, 
but Nedda felt that she must know more and could 
not let him go without his telling her the whole truth. 
She went to him and put her hand on his sleeve, 
looking up into his face with mute question in her 
eyes, for words failed her. 

" Yes," he answered, understanding her, " your 
baby is ill, quite ill, though he is now much better 
than when I came. You did well to insist on my 
coming at once. He was threatened, I think, with 
pneumonia, but a child so much run down is liable 
to have anything. What a place to keep an infant 
in! I do not believe you have a ray of sun here," 
he continued, looking into the court. " If you wish 
your child to live and be well, you must give it sun- 
shine. A plant would die in this room in a week." 

Nedda made no reply. She knew the truth of every 
word he said, had known it for weeks, as she watched 
her baby failing daily. Yet what was she to do? 
Even this place might not be hers for shelter long. 
She looked down at the child with breaking heart, 
but she remained silent, for she felt that there was 
no time now to tell him the facts, and she was not 
sure that he would be patient to hear all her story. 
He was very different from the dear old doctor who 
had brought her baby into the world. He put on his 



48 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

hat with a self-satisfied air, as though he had done 
his duty in the circumstances, and with an admoni- 
tion to Nedda not to forget to give the medicine 
when directed, he departed. 

Nedda was alone, alone there with her sick baby 
and with poverty and failure and hopelessness. She 
stood motionless while she heard the physician de- 
scend the stairs and close the street door, and for a 
long time afterward. Then she raised her eyes from 
the child as though to seek assistance in the empty 
room. Her face was white as chalk and wore a 
look of such weariness and dejection that her youth 
seemed almost to have passed from her and a stranger 
might at first sight have taken her for a much older 
woman. She looked down again at the child, which 
was now asleep, and then again around her, as 
though seeking help, until her glance in its aimless 
passage around the room fell on the small print of 
the Madonna above the bed. Her eyes remained 
fixed on the picture, her lips quivered with emotion, 
and falling on her knees beside the bed, her face 
pressed close to the baby, she poured out her soul 
in mute appeal to the Divine Mother above. 

How long she prayed she did not know, but a 
movement of the baby aroused her, and a moment 
later the stroke of one from a near-by steeple told 
her that it was time to give the medicine. As soon 
as she had given the dose and replenished the fire 
with unstinting hand from her small supply of coal, 
she sank again to her knees by the bedside in silent 
supplication. The child fell asleep immediately and 
continued to sleep on peacefully, and her instinct 
told her that he was better and that he was safe. 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 49 

What mattered anything now so long as she had her 
baby? She would work for it, suffer for it, die for 
it, if need be, but it should be saved. 

The doctor pronounced the child out of danger 
when he returned in the morning, and with instruc- 
tions to keep the room warm and give the medicine 
at stated times he duly collected his fee of five dollars 
for the two visits and left. Before he went he advised 
Nedda to move to a sunny apartment as soon as she 
could, and when she informed him frankly that her 
husband was at the war and that she could not afford 
a better lodging, he told her that, as soon as the 
child was a little stronger and the weather more 
moderate, she must wrap it up warmly and take it 
out into the sunshine for two hours each day. " It 
must have sunlight somehow," he said, " even if you 
cannot get it here." Though his advice was excellent 
and he seemed really interested to help her, he made 
no suggestion of lowering his fee in the face of her 
acknowledged poverty, and Nedda was too proud to 
ask him to do so. 

When he had gone she found that his fees and the 
cost of the medicines which he had prescribed had 
lessened her small balance by nearly seven dollars, 
and with his injunction that the room must be kept 
warm in the future she knew there would be an in- 
creased expenditure for fuel. Now that the breath- 
less suspense of the child's sudden illness was over, 
Nedda was released from that anguish, only to be 
confronted again with the rapidly advancing spectre 
of destitution. 

For two days she stayed with the child continually, 
and then, as he appeared to be much better, she 



50 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

wrapped him up warmly and, in accordance with the 
doctor's advice, took him out into the sunshine. 
They had been out for some time and she was return- 
ing home, when she was forced to stop and wait on 
the street corner by a long funeral procession com- 
ing from the Italian church of the North End and 
now on its way to the cemetery. Many persons be- 
sides Nedda stood watching the long line of mourners, 
when a woman who lived in the same tenement house 
with Nedda volunteered the information that it was 
the funeral of the good Dr. Gadroni, beloved by all 
the Italian poor of the North End, which was 
passing. 

The news was a severe shock to Nedda in her 
weakened and nervous condition, for in the death of 
the old doctor she felt that she had lost her last 
friend in this great, lonely city. She had already 
decided to go to him and ask his advice and help as 
soon as he was better, and now he too had been taken 
away from her. A crushing weight of despair seemed 
to fall on her, and when she had reached her lodging 
and made her baby comfortable, she sank again on 
her knees beside the bed, overcome by hopelessness 
and the sense of desolation. She found, however, 
that she no longer had the strength or inclination 
to pray, so completely was she disheartened. 



VII 

THE weekly visit to the bank and the sight of the 
pitifully small sum remaining on her deposit 
book stirred her from her apathy with a sense of the 
necessity of finding work without further delay. But 
where should she turn for it? She knew it was use- 
less to go back to the employment agencies, for she 
had no references and they seemed so indifferent to 
helping her. She attempted to get a place in many 
shops and stores, but her slight knowledge of Eng- 
lish and her hesitation and timidity were her undoing, 
whenever she presented herself, and she saw that 
there was no hope of her being employed by any 
American firm. 

Finally she tried the small Italian shops in her 
own quarter, but they all seemed to be supplied with 
help. She was returning home, quite exhausted and 
hopeless, when, in passing a fruit stall at a corner 
of the street where she lived, evidently kept by one 
of her compatriots, at which several persons were 
making purchases, she heard the proprietress say 
in Italian to an impatient customer: "You must 
wait a minute. I have not four hands to serve every- 
one at once. My assistant has left me." Nedda 
stood still. Here was an opportunity. 

She waited till after the buyers were served and 
then offered her services to the stall keeper, speaking 
in Italian, which gave her courage. It happened 



52 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

that this person was also a Sicilian and they dropped 
into the dialect at once. Yes, the woman needed a 
helper, but she could not afford to pay more than 
six dollars a week, and the hours were from eight 
in the morning till eight at night and till ten on 
Saturday nights, with half an hour at noon for din- 
ner. Nedda explained to her that she had a young 
baby near by, which must be nursed at intervals, 
and that if she might also go home for half an hour 
at four o'clock and again for a little while on Satur- 
days at seven o'clock to see to her baby, she could 
come. The other agreed and it was understood that 
Nedda should begin on the morrow. " Wear warm 
clothes," her prospective employer called out to her 
as she started away. " It is cold work standing out 
here all day at this time of year, and I don't care 
to be bothered with any more assistants falling ill." 

All the way home a voice seemed to be repeating 
to Nedda in ringing tones: " Saved! Saved!" Six 
dollars a week — more than twenty-four dollars a 
month and that in addition to the money still re- 
maining in the bank. Almost sufficient each week to 
pay the rent, for the heat, and to buy food, and by 
drafts of only a dollar or two a week at the bank 
there would be enough money to last through the 
cold weather. " Saved ! Saved ! " She ran up the 
stairs in her excitement and, taking the baby up from 
the bed, awoke it with kisses and joyous protesta- 
tions. " Saved ! Saved ! " 

In her happiness she took the little print of the 
Madonna down from the wall and kissed it tenderly 
and reverently, for had not the Madonna saved them, 
found her this work, just when there seemed no 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 53 

escape from the terrible net which enmeshed her ! The 
reaction from her previous despair was so great that, 
for a time, she was almost beside herself and kept 
talking aloud to the baby and herself and repeating 
the great good fortune, as though she could not say 
it too often. Soon the baby began to cry and she 
realized that it was hungry, and this brought her 
back to the sober realities of life. 

She took the child in her arms and nursed it, and 
from excitement she passed into a mood of quiet 
thankfulness and a peace such as she had not known 
for months. The sombre veil of uncertainty had in- 
deed lifted and she already looked out into the future 
with confidence, feeling her baby and herself safe 
until Marco should come back. How she would 
work, how useful she would be at the fruit stall; 
she would make herself so necessary that the mistress 
would never want her to go. But of course she would 
be obliged to leave when Marco returned, for he 
would wish all to be just as it had been before he 
left. 

It was unfortunate that she must be so much away 
from the baby and that she could no longer take 
him out of doors, as the doctor had ordered; but 
then the weather was very bad at present, too bad 
for so young a baby to be out, and she would keep 
plenty of coal in the stove and the room so warm 
and comfortable that he would always be very cosey 
while she was gone. She would nurse him well each 
morning and again at noon and once more at four 
o'clock, and she would tie him safely in the bed, so 
that he could not fall out, just as she had seen work- 
ing mothers do in Italy. Then on Sunday she would 



54 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

be free and would have the baby all to herself and 
be able to mend its little clothes and love it and 
make up to it for having been absent so much from 
it all the week. 

The next morning Nedda was up at an early hour. 
She had the fire going, the baby washed and dressed 
and nursed and comfortably tucked in on the bed, 
her own toilet made, and breakfast eaten by half 
past seven. Before eight she was at the fruit stall, 
eager for the duties that lay before her. 

The woman who kept the booth was married, but 
had a drunken husband, who took no interest in the 
trade, which was wholly in the hands of his wife, a 
large, stout, aggressive creature, who knew her own 
mind and ruled with a rod of iron. She drank, too, 
at times, but her commercial instinct was her strong- 
est passion, and during business hours she was never 
absent, upless at the wharves or market purchasing 
fruit. The only evidence of an occasional bout of 
drinking on her part was a red face and a shrewish 
temper. 

It fell to Nedda to do all the hard work of a rough 
and tumble trade. She had to open the crates of 
newly arrived fruit, sort and arrange the various 
kinds for sale, do up all packages of the same which 
had been sold, and deliver many of them in the neigh- 
borhood, for the trade was largely with the popula- 
tion of the North End. At night her hands were 
chapped and sore and were often cut and bleeding 
from splinters or sharp twine, while her legs and 
indeed her whole body ached from continual stooping, 
lifting, and running errands. This, in addition to 
nursing her baby, doing housework at home early in 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 55 

the morning and late at night, and with hardly any 
time for rest or to eat properly, was a severe strain 
on her vitality. The relief, however, from the ter- 
rible worry and uncertainty in which she had been 
living was so great that the physical strain and hard 
work of her new life seemed but a light burden in 
comparison. 

The customers were mostly her compatriots, and 
they were of all kinds, from little street Arabs or 
newsboys, each buying a single banana at a time, 
to restaurant keepers and comfortably well-off fami- 
lies. There were a good many Israelites also, the 
Jewish quarter adjoining and almost interlocking 
with the Italian quarter, and though they were hard 
bargainers, they were steady buyers and always with 
ready money and therefore desirable patrons. 

The fruit dealer herself did most of the selling. 
For this Nedda was very glad, as the American 
money always troubled her, especially when she had 
to make change quickly. Sometimes, however, she 
was obliged to sell also, when there was a rush of 
business or when the mistress went to market. It was 
always a nervous time for Nedda when she acted as 
saleswoman. Her employer had the eye of a lynx 
for every cent due, knew the stock to a banana, and 
would have detected any error in the accounting with- 
out fail, Nedda felt sure. What would happen if 
the stand should be the loser by a mistake of hers, 
Nedda dared not think. 

Most of the purchasers were pleasant to deal with 
and many of them were Italians of the neighborhood 
whom Nedda knew by sight. There was one man, 
however, quite young and smartly dressed and 



56 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

apparently well off, who often bought fruit, but the 
sight of whom always made Nedda uneasy and filled 
her with a vague alarm. With a good woman's sen- 
sitiveness she felt danger in the way he looked at 
her, and she shrank into the back of the stall when- 
ever he appeared. Sometimes the stall keeper was 
occupied and she was obliged to serve him, and it 
seemed to her that he generally appeared just when 
they were most busy. 

Though clearly of foreign extraction, perhaps an 
Italian, a Spaniard, or a Greek, he had evidently 
grown up in America, if he had not been born here, 
as he spoke only English, of which she was glad, for 
when he tried to enter into conversation with her 
while she was doing up his bundle, she pretended not 
to understand his remarks. This did not prevent his 
pinching her arm on several occasions when she was 
so employed, and only the thought of her baby and 
the fear of losing her place, for he was a steady cus- 
tomer, prevented her from throwing the package of 
fruit in his face. 

One day the proprietress, who seemed to know the 
affairs of most of her patrons, volunteered the in- 
formation to Nedda that he was a " bad man," who 
owned "a joint" near by; "but," she continued, 
" he makes plenty of money and is a good spender, 
so it 's none of my affair." This intelligence only 
confirmed Nedda's suspicions, for she had felt a sinis- 
ter and forbidding something about this man ever 
since she first saw him. She became the more re- 
served whenever he appeared and avoided serving 
him every time she could. 



vin 

THE days passed on with varying fortunes for 
Nedda. Her place was a hard one, her em- 
ployer a coarse, bad-tempered tyrant who, when in 
an ill humor, which was not infrequently the case, 
took an unconcealed delight in bullying and hector- 
ing her poor little assistant and in " driving " her 
for all she was worth. Nedda found that she was 
seldom free to go home before nine or half past at 
night, though the hour understood had been eight 
o'clock, save on Saturday nights, and when she did 
return she was frequently almost dropping from 
fatigue. 

Moreover, the baby was clearly suffering from lack 
of attention and the long hours by itself, and Nedda, 
who was so tired and spent when she got back, was 
finding it more and more difficult to nurse it. It was 
now nearly six months old and the teething period, 
always a trying time, was approaching and the baby 
was growing fretful and restless. Nedda often en- 
tered the room to find it whimpering, and her heart 
sank within her at the thought that it might often 
be crying and unhappy all alone. But what could 
she do? There was not enough money to hire any- 
one to look after it ; she could not wholly make both 
ends meet as it was. It was too cold at the fruit 
stand to take her baby with her, and she was so busy 
there that she could have given it no care if it had 



58 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

been by her side. So she tried to be brave and to 
persuade herself that all was going on well, though 
the baby's thinness and palor and its evident 
wretchedness wrung her heart whenever she looked 
at it. 

She had received no reply from Marco or from her 
old grandmother since she wrote to them, though 
more than seven weeks had passed. Inasmuch as she 
had work, she was not worrying quite so much at 
their not having sent her any assistance; but the 
non-receipt of news, especially from Marco, tortured 
her with suspense. What if he were dead? She had 
never felt so alone before, so overborne with anxiety. 
Her baby was ill, her Marco gone, swallowed up in 
the great tide of war, her own strength failing from 
overwork and worry, and there was no one to help 
her, not one friend to encourage her by word or 
smile. It was hard, very hard, and Nedda in her 
bitterness and hopelessness sometimes found it diffi- 
cult to pray any more to the Madonna, who seldom 
seemed to hear her. 

It was true that she had found work, but what 
work! She felt that a slave could not be treated 
more harshly or driven harder through the twelve 
weary hours when she was at the beck and call of her 
employer. The latter seemed to begrudge more and 
more even the two short half hours at twelve and 
four o'clock, when Nedda went back to nurse her 
baby, though it had been understood that she should 
have these brief intervals. Often the woman made 
up for them by holding Nedda as late as possible, 
after her long day's work should have been done, to 
assist in various additional duties. 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 59 

Christmas and New Year's had passed uneventfully 
and Nedda was thankful for the rush of business on 
those days to occupy her mind, for otherwise her 
loneliness would have been unbearable. She lighted 
two small candles before the picture of the Madonna 
on Christmas Eve and again at New Year's, and 
prayed there with her baby in her arms. But she 
could not keep back the thought of a year ago, when 
she had her Marco with her, and the memories of 
every other previous holiday in her life, when she 
had always been among relatives and friends. The 
sense of her complete isolation bore in on her and 
overwhelmed her, and she found herself sobbing even 
in the midst of her prayers. She knew, however, 
that she must continue to be brave, if she were to 
go on ; so she crowded back the flood of memories, 
dried her eyes, and forced herself to be calm. Luckily 
the hard work of the day had on each occasion so 
exhausted her that mercifully she soon found a refuge 
in sleep. 

It was now mid-January and bitterly cold weather. 
Nedda, who had only a shawl for extra protec- 
tion, found it hard to keep warm during all the long 
hours standing at the entrance to the stall in the 
open air. Her hands suffered most, for she could 
not do her work with mittens on. The elder woman, 
who possessed a warm cloak, sat sheltered in a corner 
at the rear of the booth most of the time and made 
Nedda do all of the cold work and even the making 
of the change, which required bare hands, though she 
observed Nedda carefully from her corner. 

This was a difficult task for Nedda, as she could 
never get accustomed to this strange foreign currency. 



60 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

The buyers were sometimes impatient to conclude the 
transactions and be gone, which confused her the 
more. To take twelve cents' worth of apples and fif- 
teen cents' worth of bananas out of a dollar in a hurry 
and give the right sum in return was a breathless 
business, and she often wondered how she got 
through it. 

Her mistress, who sat watching with an eagle 
eye, often came forward to consult her about the 
last sale and Nedda's heart stood still meanwhile, 
for fear there might be a mistake. Once she caught 
herself in an error just in time, and the customer, 
who was a decent young fellow, returned the over- 
amount he had received. This experience made 
her the more nervous and she prayed for warmer 
weather, when the proprietress would again handle 
the money. 

Under such conditions of overwork, fatigue, and 
worry Nedda would have been more than human if 
an accident or mistake of some kind had not occurred. 
The inevitable happened one cold, damp evening, 
when she was aching in every joint and ready to 
drop from exhaustion. The fruit woman was sitting 
huddled up as usual in the back of the recess, very 
surly from the effect of too much alcoholic indulgence 
the night before, and still worse tempered because 
of a poor day's trade. A customer appeared and 
bought a number of different kinds of fruit, after 
much changing around and redeciding, which in itself 
was very confusing to the poor little saleswoman. 
At last the package was made up and paid for, but 
hardly had the purchaser left when Nedda's employer 
came forward from her corner to investigate. She 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 61 

looked at the slip on which Nedda had entered the 
amount and made her enumerate the different kinds 
of fruit which she had sold, and even as she did so 
Nedda remembered that she had neglected to charge 
ten cents for three apples. 

The woman descended on the omission like some 
savage creature on its prey, and her wrath was mer- 
ciless. She accused Nedda of trying to cheat her, 
denounced her as dishonest and a " bad lot," and 
even threatened to give her over to the police. Nedda 
tried to explain and offered to make good the loss, 
but the enraged vender refused to listen and con- 
tinued to vituperate. She almost pushed Nedda out 
of the booth, telling her that she was through with 
her and had had enough of her. Though a week's 
wages were almost due her, the stall keeper made no 
suggestion of paying the same and kept reiterating 
that Nedda had been cheating her out of much 
money. 

The poor girl was no match for this virago, and 
indeed she was glad to get away from such vilification 
and invective. She left the place in silence, followed 
by savage abuse, which echoed in her ears long after 
she had reached her room. The baby was evidently 
more ailing than usual, which distracted Nedda's 
attention somewhat from her misfortune; but min- 
gled with the denunciations of the woman, which 
still seemed to pursue her, a bitter refrain kept re- 
peating itself in her ears: " What will you do now? 
What will you do now? " for she saw that she was 
confronted, and in mid-winter, with the same terrible 
situation as before she had finally found a position 
at the stall. 



62 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

There was a good deal less than twenty dollars 
now in the bank, for Nedda had been forced to draw 
small sums almost weekly to help out with the coal 
and other extras. In two or three weeks at most 
she would be destitute, and her heart sank within her, 
since she knew that, in such weather, destitution 
meant death for the baby, if not for her. 

She finally decided to return to the booth and 
plead with the mistress to take her back again. It 
was a hard thing to do, but she recognized that she 
must flinch from nothing to protect her child. When 
she got there, however, she saw another girl even 
more youthful than herself already filling her place, 
and she understood why the proprietress had been 
so willing to discharge her : she had found a younger 
assistant who could probably work for less wages. 



IX 

NEDDA turned away with such a sense of defeat 
and hopelessness as she had never felt before. 
It seemed as if all doors were closed against her 
and as though there were no escape from the grim 
spectre that stalked silently beside her. Retracing 
her steps to her room, she replenished the fire and 
nursed the baby ; but she was wholly broken in spirit 
and benumbed, and what she was doing seemed to 
her almost useless, for it was only putting off the 
inevitable by a few days. Why nurse the child, 
why try to keep the place warm, when they would 
soon be without either heat or food? Would it not 
be better, more humane to them both, for they were 
both suffering, to take her little one and walk down 
to the harbor, so near by, and end it all at once? 

She dared not raise her eyes to the Madonna, for 
she was aware that such thoughts were sinful; but 
she had not the strength to combat them, and indeed 
the idea of death began to have a strange fasci- 
nation for her. Death, at least, offered an escape 
from her tragic condition — from want and heart 
hunger and uncertainty and apprehension. 

However, as the hours passed, something in her 
brought back the old fighting spirit, the determina- 
tion to save her child if she could, and she made up 
her mind to try at once for employment, perhaps in 
some other fruit store. She had learned how to sell 



64 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

fruit and how to pack it and deliver it and perhaps 
some dealer might want help. She started out at 
once and wandered until it was dark, asking at every 
fruit stall for work. She found her way to the 
market, where there were many such dealers, but 
wherever she applied the answer was always the 
same. No one seemed in need of assistance, or per- 
haps it was her foreign appearance and broken 
English that were against her. 

She came home long after it was dark, more dis- 
pirited than before, if that were possible, and so 
weary that she had hardly the strength to take her 
clothes off and crawl into bed. The baby was sleep- 
ing, which was a relief, for she knew that she was 
too spent to be able to nurse it until she had had 
some rest. So greatly was she exhausted that she 
fell asleep almost at once, but it was a troubled 
sleep, filled with the sense of impending calamity, 
and indeed sorrow seemed to be as much her bed- 
fellow as her companion by day. 

Towards morning she awoke to find the baby rest- 
less and feverish. She took it up and tried to nurse 
it, but it refused nourishment, just as it had done 
when it had been so ill before. As the hours dragged 
on it seemed to grow worse and she feared she must 
again go for the doctor; but with so little money 
left, how could she do so? What of the rent and 
what of the coal? If she had to pay a doctor, they 
might be without enough money left even to go 
through another week. What good would it do to 
cure her child if, immediately it was better, they 
must both face starvation? So she struggled on 
and tried to comfort the baby as best she could. 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 65 

But it did not grow better, and finally she decided 
she must try to find help. 

She went to the consulate to ask whether there 
was a hospital where she might take it. The consul 
was busy and could not see her, but his clerk received 
her. Inasmuch as she was an alien, he told her that 
her position with regard to the city charities and 
the hospitals was more difficult, and that there might 
be a good deal of red tape and some delay in getting 
her infant received into a hospital. There was, how- 
ever, a branch dispensary of one of the hospitals 
at an address which he gave her, and if she would 
carry the baby there during visiting hours, he 
thought they would treat it free of charge, though 
she would probably be expected to pay something 
for the medicine. 

The day was bitterly cold and Nedda hesitated 
to take her poor little feverish mite out into such 
weather, but she saw that something must be done 
and so, wrapping it up as warmly as she could and 
hugging it tight to her breast, she started on her 
way. It was a long walk to quite a different quarter 
of the city, and she had to show the paper on which 
the address was written many times to different per- 
sons before she found the dispensary. It was al- 
most past the hour for consultations when she got 
there, but they let her in, and after sitting some time 
in the waiting room for her turn, she was ushered 
into a small office, where a young doctor took the 
child from her and examined it. 

" Your baby is anaemic and under-nourished," 
he said. "Are you nursing it? You look underfed 
yourself and in no condition to nurse a child. If 



66 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

you wish to keep on doing so, you must eat more 
and get in better shape. The child is much run 
down and besides has a cold. Take it home and 
give it this medicine," he continued, handing her a 
prescription. " Keep it warm and in a sunny room, 
and above all look after yourself, if you want to 
nourish the baby properly. Rest as much as you 
can and eat well every day. Do you mind me? " he 
concluded sharply, as she remained silent. 

Yes, she understood; how well she understood. 
He was asking the impossible, scolding her for what 
she could not do, could not give. She tried to ex- 
plain, but with her scanty English the words would 
not come to her, and as the doctor seemed to con- 
sider the visit at an end, she turned away with the 
baby in her arms, his recipe crumpled in her hand, 
and mad despair aching and tearing at her heart. 

She went first to the druggist's on her way home 
and got the prescription filled. He looked at the 
baby doubtfully, as he handed her the bottle, and 
said, " Get that child in the house as soon as possible 
and in a warm place; it has fever and should never 
have been taken out such a day as this." Nedda's 
heart sank within her and she hurried home through 
the cold twilight as fast as she could. 

Once in the house she made up a fire and tried to 
warm and nurse the baby, but it still refused nour- 
ishment. Then she gave it the medicine as directed, 
but as the hours wore on its condition grew clearly 
worse. It was moaning and whimpering and evi- 
dently in pain, and whoever has heard a baby moan 
will know what that meant to Nedda. She gave the 
dose again and again, but to no effect. 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 67 

Finally she determined to act for herself. She saw 
that the child was in much the same state as on 
the night of its first illness, when the American 
doctor whom she could no longer afford to employ 
had cured it. It had the same flushed face and 
glassy eyes and seemed to breathe in the same queer, 
thick way. Why not try the remedy the other 
doctor gave her on the previous occasion? She still 
had the recipe. She snatched up her shawl and 
ran out in the winter night to the drug store. 

In a short time she was back again with the little 
bottle. She gave a dose to the child and subse- 
quently other doses, as formerly, every two hours. 
The effect was not so marked as then, but gradually, 
as the night wore on, the child seemed better and 
towards morning the fever dropped. She realized 
that his condition was far more serious than it had 
ever been and she decided to continue the medicine 
through the day, fearing a return of the high fever. 
Gradually, however, it grew better, and when even- 
ing brought no appreciably higher temperature, 
Nedda knew that she had saved her child. 

It had been a hard struggle. Throughout the 
preceding night she had not slept or relaxed her 
vigilance for a moment, ever crooning over the baby, 
rocking it, soothing it, and always watching it, al- 
ways on the alert, giving the medicine, keeping the 
fire up, so that the room might not get colder. 
Every fibre of her vitality, all her strength which 
had been so spent, so gone, but a few hours previ- 
ously, seemed to have come back to her and she 
was exerting herself as never before in this fight 
with the grimmest of opponents. 



68 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

Broken in spirit and in body as she was, worn 
and exhausted and hopeless as she had become, she 
was now calling up all of her remaining force, 
physical and spiritual, and using it without reserve 
for the one great object — to save her child. What 
would happen later she did not know, she could not 
think, but save her child she must. 

In the loneliness and silence she fought on, dog- 
gedly, unflinchingly, for the poor, throbbing little 
mite at her heart, and so great had been her concen- 
tration in this last desperate encounter with fate 
that, when the baby was better, she seemed for the 
time to have forgotten the other issue which con- 
fronted her. For two days she stayed by the baby, 
wholly absorbed in its care and in the immeasurable 
joy of having it safe again. The constant nursing 
and unremitting attention did much to restore the 
child, and at last she felt that it was decidedly 
stronger. 



X TEDDA was recalled to a sense of her situation by 
jL^I a knock at the door; it was the collector after 
the week's rent. She did not have the amount in 
hand, for in her agitation over the child she had 
forgotten to go to the bank. The agent looked at 
her suspiciously, but agreed to call again in an hour, 
and Nedda hastened away for the money. She drew 
only enough to cover the rent, light, and hire of 
furniture for the seven days which had just ended 
and to pay for coal and a little food the coming 
week. To her dismay she saw that on the following 
Saturday there would be barely enough money in 
the bank to pay the rent, etc., to that date and 
carry her on through part of the ensuing week. 
This meant no food or coal after ten days' time and 
eviction for non-payment of rent in two weeks' time. 
As soon as she had settled her debts Nedda took 
out the poor little deposit book and laboriously 
verified its figures, in the hope that by some mistake 
in the same more balance might yet remain to her 
credit. But there was no such error and Nedda 
saw that she had now but ten days, or at most two 
weeks of grace, before they would be wholly desti- 
tute. She would gladly have gone without much, 
if any, food, but she knew that if she did not eat 
she could not continue to nourish the child, which 
was already becoming difficult for her. As for coal, 



70 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

to economize that was equivalent to inviting Death 
to come for her baby. 

She made up her mind that, whatever the effort, 
she must find work, and she started again in pursuit 
of the same within an hour. She was unsuccessful 
and the following day, being Sunday, she had no 
opportunity to continue the search. On Monday 
she tried again, going to many shops and even to 
private houses, asking for employment. But the 
thin, pretty Italian girl with a shawl over her head, 
the startled, faun-like eyes, and hesitating, confused 
speech did not seem to impress those she appealed to 
as a suitable domestic or saleswoman, and though 
some persons were more kind than others, everywhere 
she met refusal. 

She returned to her room on Tuesday evening to 
find her baby again worse, and for all that night 
and the day following she had a hard struggle to 
pull it around. By Thursday she was again on the 
tramp, but her courage was gone, her strength was 
visibly failing, and people seemed to regard her in- 
creasing hesitation and nervousness with suspicion. 
Friday was indeed a black day for Nedda, for there 
was a blinding snowstorm and it blew a gale, forcing 
her to remain indoors. 

Saturday was rent day and she went to the bank 
and drew her remaining eight dollars. They took 
her bank book and she understood that her credit 
was at an end. She paid the week's rent, light, and 
for the use of the furniture, and with a sort of reck- 
lessness of despair laid in two dollars' worth of coal 
and thirty cents' worth of kindling, feeling that she 
must be sure of heat for the week at any rate. 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 71 

When these matters were settled there remained 
just one dollar and sixty cents between Nedda and 
starvation. She would do her best to make that last 
as long as possible ; but if she starved she knew but 
too well that the baby would starve also, while if she 
tried to feed it on cow's milk that would cost as much 
as to eat sufficiently herself and nurse it. It was a 
desperate outlook, but Nedda was so numbed by 
suspense and suffering that she faced it more calmly 
than she had ever done before. 

She still searched for work, but though she 
tramped the city and presented herself at all kinds 
of places, no one seemed to want her. Some were 
very kind. At one house they sent her into the 
kitchen and offered her food, saying she looked cold 
and hungry. At another place a woman gave her a 
pair of boots, hers being almost soleless. In an office 
building they found her a day's work, helping to 
clean out a vacant shop, and paid her a dollar for it. 
But work, permanent work, she could not find, try 
as she would. 

By Thursday night her money was exhausted all 
but ten cents, and she threw herself on her knees in 
front of the Madonna in a passionate supplication 
for help. She remained in prayer much of the night, 
for she could not sleep, and on the following morn- 
ing she sat nursing her baby, white and dry eyed, 
with breaking heart, when there came a knock at 
the door. It was the postman with a registered 
letter. 

She signed for the same, but when she found her- 
self alone, she hesitated for a moment to open it. 
Her heart seemed to stand still. Was it from 



72 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

Marco? Was it good news or bad news? She did 
not recognize the handwriting, but then Marco 
wrote so poorly, someone would be sure to write the 
address for him. She prayed for a moment with 
silent intensity that it might not contain bad tidings. 
Then she found courage to open the envelope. It 
enclosed a few well-written sheets of paper and a 
postal order for fifty-three lire. 

The communication was not from Marco, but 
from her dear old grandmother, written of course 
by the priest. It was a sad, rambling account, evi- 
dently taken down by the priest just as grand- 
mother had dictated it. They were so sorry to 
hear she was in such need. They hoped she would 
soon find work till Marco returned to her. They 
were very poor themselves. The war had made 
everything so dear and everyone was finding it very 
hard. They had no money, but grandmother had 
sold her old donkey, her sciecco, for fifty lire and 
the harness for five, and they were sending Nedda 
fifty-three lire, which was about what remained 
after paying for the postal money-order and the 
postage. Grandmother would not miss the donkey 
much, the missive continued, for there was little work 
to be done now at this season. So Nedda was 
cautioned not to worry, and they hoped the money 
would reach her safely and be of help. They all 
sent her much love and the priest sent her his 
blessing. 

Nedda let fall the first tears over this letter which 
she had been able to shed for days, and it was a 
relief to be able to cry again. What it cost her poor 
old grandmother to part with her sciecco Nedda 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 73 

well knew, for the donkey is the Sicilian peasant's 
best friend and helper. After she had gone to the 
post office and collected the seven dollars and forty 
odd cents due on the postal order at the equivalent 
value of the American currency, she felt a sense of 
guilt in having been the cause of such a sacrifice 
for a return which here, in this expensive land, 
would assist her so little. A week's expenses at most 
was all that this poor sum would pay for, and for 
this her grandmother had parted with her sole aid 
and standby — her donkey ! 

With the money in her hands she thanked the 
Madonna with an overflowing heart, for had not her 
prayers of the night before been answered? Was 
not this a chance to keep a roof over their heads for 
another week, while she could make continued efforts 
to find work? 



XI 

WHEN Nedda had paid her rent the next day 
and the other charges and had laid in a supply 
of coal, there was only a dollar and eighteen cents 
left for her food and incidentals. She saw that so 
small a sum would barely last through the week. 

Fortunately, however, she had thought of another 
way to get some money. She would pawn most of 
her things, especially those she did not need at this 
season. These consisted of two summer dresses, one 
thick dress, and her linen, together with some 
suits of Marco's which he had not taken with him, 
and last of all there were her few little pieces of 
jewelry and knickknacks. She could redeem them all 
later, when she had found work or when Marco re- 
turned, so that she would not lose them. In the 
vicinity there were several pawnshops, and Nedda 
knew that they would lend money on almost any 
object, provided it had value. 

She set out to do it at once, with all her extra 
clothes and other things made up securely into a 
stout bundle. She had no idea which would be the 
best place to go, so she went to the first one she 
came to. She hesitated for a moment at the entrance, 
over which hung three large gilt balls, somewhat 
shabby and needing regilding. What should she 
say? Would they accept her things? Perhaps they 
had as many of such as they cared for? Second- 



8-i / tiff m 



v- 



' i ■*■■" ■■* 



I 




? it 



i:t% 



Ni-'dda's Quartek 



> 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 75 

hand clothes were hanging on hooks by the door and 
within there appeared to be a quantity of clothing; 
indeed all these things seemed much newer and better 
than what she had brought with her. 

She looked in the window. There were several 
pieces of jewelry, some watches, a silver belt buckle, 
a tray of postage stamps of various countries, and a 
number of other articles spread out inside the glass 
in heterogeneous array. She supposed they had each 
been pledged by someone and, not having been re- 
deemed, were now offered for sale just as in the shops 
in Italy, after having been bid in at auction. In one 
corner of the window was an old violin, very much 
worn by usage, marked fifteen dollars. She wondered 
whether that too had been originally left in pawn 
by some poor musician, and whether he had loved 
it a great deal and was very unhappy to part with 
it. She apprehended that many other people were 
facing the same troubles as she, and the sense of the 
sorrows of others somehow gave her courage in the 
thought that she was not alone in her poverty and 
difficulties. 

As Nedda entered the shop she recognized the 
person in charge as a patron of the fruit stall, whom 
she had often served. This made her hopeful that 
the woman would be less exacting with her ; for like 
most of the poor, who have usury as their next 
door neighbor, she had a native dread of those 
whose business it is to profit from the necessities of 
distress. 

If the pawnbroker recalled her, she gave no sign of 
so doing, but opened the bundle and appraised its 
contents in a most impassive manner. It took her 



76 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

a little time to go through Nedda's effects: three 
dresses, one of them her best dress of very good 
cloth, several chemises and other underclothing, two 
suits of Marco's, his cap, and a few shirts of his, 
two brooches, a neck chain and a pair of earrings 
given her by Marco, different ribbons for holiday 
wear, and a pretty embroidered collar which she 
wore with her best dress and which was her greatest 
treasure. There were also a real tortoise-shell comb 
which Marco had given her, a silver thimble, and a 
beautiful bright shawl which had been her mother's 
and which she used only on special occasions. 

This was her collection, and knowing that all these 
things must have cost a great deal of money when 
purchased, perhaps much more than a hundred dol- 
lars, and that all were serviceable and some as good 
as new, Nedda hoped for a loan of at least twenty- 
five dollars on the same. 

After a searching inspection of everything in the 
pile the woman said laconically : " Four dollars." 
Nedda was so surprised that she thought she 
must have misunderstood. The pawnbroker, seeing 
Nedda's stupefaction, repeated still more indiffer- 
ently : " Four dollars is all anyone will give you on 
this rubbish," and turned away unconcernedly to 
serve another customer, leaving the garments spread 
out on the counter. 

Nedda was so overcome that she could hardly col- 
lect her ideas. " Four dollars ! " She knew that 
such an offer for all her possessions was an outrage, 
worse than a refusal. The gold in the jewelry alone 
must be worth as much. Yet what was she to do, 
where was she to go? The other pawnshops might 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 77 

give her no more, and indeed her courage was com- 
mencing to fail. 

Though the customer had left, the woman paid 
no attention to Nedda, apparently leaving her to 
collect her goods and do up her bundle if she were 
not satisfied. She stood hesitating, trying to gain 
confidence to ask for better terms. The proprietress, 
like a spider, kept just out of reach, covertly watch- 
ing. Finally Nedda ventured to cross the shop to 
her. " Will you not give me more? " she found the 
courage to say in her sweet, hesitating way. " My 
baby is ill and my husband is at the war," she con- 
tinued appealingly. " It 's all they 're worth," the 
woman replied impersonally, but in a little more 
responsive tone than before, for it was impossible 
not to be touched by Nedda's appeal. 

" But they are all good things," Nedda pleaded ; 
" they cost much money." " The dresses are out of 
fashion," the woman said, " and the ornaments are 
only plated stuff." This statement was but partly 
true and the pawnshop keeper knew it, for only one 
brooch and the back part of another were plated and 
the earrings and chain were of gold; but then it 
was the girl's business to know the value of her prop- 
erty, the woman reasoned, and if she did n't so much 
the worse for her. 

" Plated ! " Surely Marco would not have given 
her plated jewelry for her name day thought Nedda. 
"Plated?" Why, he had always told her they 
were real gold. He must have been cheated, poor 
Marco. Nedda's eyes filled with tears. 

The proprietress was observing her narrowly. 
Nedda's lips were quivering, the tears were begin- 



78 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

ning to trickle down her pale cheeks. " But the 
other things, all my husband's clothes and my 
linen? " she queried. " All the rest is of no value 
to us," her interlocutor replied. " We just allow a 
little on it to oblige you. The man's suits are a good 
deal worn and spotted," she continued, taking up a 
coat and pointing out a spot to Nedda. " It would 
cost as much to clean them and put them in shape as 
we could sell them for." " But I mean to redeem 
them," faltered Nedda. " We have to be prepared 
for your not redeeming them," the adroit creature 
answered, with a well-simulated impatience. " And 
my embroidered collar," Nedda added, " it is all by 
hand." " Not the fashion," snapped the other, 
turning her back to Nedda and arranging some 
clothes. " We could not sell it in a twelve-month," 
she volunteered over her shoulder. 

" Will you not give me a little more? " supplicated 
Nedda. " My baby is so ill and I am out of work." 
The woman went across to the articles and turned 
them over again indifferently with an annoyed ex- 
pression, as though she were being importuned be- 
yond the limit of endurance. " I '11 give you five 
dollars on them," she said curtly. " We 're taking a 
risk, but seeing your baby 's sick, I '11 let you have 
five on them, though my husband will blame me for it 
when he comes in." Nedda looked on helplessly, try- 
ing to come to a decision, but too disappointed to be 
able to think very clearly. 

The pawnbroker evidently interpreted Nedda's 
silence as consent and, gathering the things up 
hastily, as if her time and patience had been al- 
ready too long trespassed upon, passed with them 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 79 

into the inner office. In a couple of minutes she re- 
turned with a printed slip on which a rough inven- 
tory of the goods was entered in ink and also the 
amount advanced. She placed the paper and a five- 
dollar bill in Nedda's hand in a patronizing manner, 
as though she were doing an act of the most con- 
siderate philanthropy, saying as she did so, " We 
usually deduct the first month's interest in advance, 
but seeing you need the money so, I am giving you 
the five dollars net." 

Nedda held the paper and the money in an almost 
pulseless hand. She tried to say " Thank you," but 
the words stuck in her throat. The woman turned 
back to her other duties unconcernedly and Nedda 
passed silently out of the shop. Defeat stared her 
in the face more relentlessly than ever. She had 
stripped her poor little home of practically every- 
thing she possessed, leaving only the clothes of the 
baby, the bed linen to cover it, and a change of body 
linen for herself, and this was the result — five dol- 
lars, enough to stave off starvation for about a 
week. 

In her distress she began to talk aloud to herself 
in the street. " What shall I do? I must find work. 
I must find work." She spoke in Italian, and her 
foreign tongue and agitated manner caused several 
people to look at her as they passed, but she was 
conscious of nothing save her own misery. When 
she had reached her room she flung herself on the 
bed beside the baby, with the money and pawn ticket 
still crushed in her hand, and lay there in despair. 

The child seemed to her to divine her unhappiness, 
for it turned its little face towards her and stretched 



80 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

out its tiny hand. The little, appealing movement 
brought Nedda to herself and she sat up and took 
her baby in her arms to nurse it. After all she had 
her darling still, the room was as yet theirs, there 
was enough money for fuel and food for the week, 
and by that time she would have work. 



XII 

AS soon as the child had been nursed and put to 
sleep and Nedda had regained her composure, 
she started out to tramp the city once more in search 
of employment. She tried stores, laundries, private 
houses, eating rooms, but always without success. 
Nobody wanted to hire this pale, desperate, foreign- 
looking girl, hooded in a faded shawl, who hesitated 
when she approached anyone and hardly made her- 
self understood. 

After six days of fruitless endeavor Nedda found 
herself on the eve of rent day with only sufficient 
money left to pay the rent and for the hire of the 
furniture. Of gas she had used none. There was 
no money remaining for food and she had finished 
her last shovelful of coal. The fire was burning out 
and the temperature of the room was falling. 

In her desperation she decided to pawn her two 
pretty rings and her wedding ring. They were all 
she had left of value. One ring Marco had given her 
after she promised to marry him. It was gold and 
had a red stone, which must be worth something, she 
thought. He had tramped all the way from their 
mountain village down to Palermo to buy it, and she 
knew he had paid dear for it. The other ring had 
a blue turquoise set in it. Marco had given this one 
to her the day after she had confided her great secret 
to him and made him so happy in the knowledge of 



82 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

his coming fatherhood. Then there was her wedding 
ring and that was gold, or looked like gold; for 
since her experience with the pawnshop woman 
Nedda was not sure of the quality of anything. 

She decided to go to a better part of the city, 
where she had also seen pawnshops and where she 
hoped they might be more liberal with her. So she 
walked from the North End down Tremont Street, 
past Boylston Street, until she came to a street run- 
ning off Tremont Street in that vicinity. Here she 
looked for and found a pawnshop which she remem- 
bered having seen when she was searching for work. 

She entered with less hesitation than on the previ- 
ous occasion at the other shop and, slipping her 
three rings from her fingers, approached the counter. 
The proprietor behind it was momentarily busy with 
another customer, and as Nedda waited she looked 
at the three poor little rings she treasured so dearly, 
her last precious things to be given up, for she was 
still girl enough to cling to her trinkets. Then she 
thought of her position and her baby and handed 
the rings quickly over the counter to the keen-eyed 
individual confronting her. 

"Do you want to pawn them? " he asked curtly, 
squinting at them. She nodded her head affirma- 
tively. After a couple of minutes' investigation at 
the back of the shop he returned and handed her a 
pawn ticket, together with fifty cents. She counted 
it with care: a quarter, two dimes, and a five-cent 
piece. The amount seemed so pitifully small in com- 
parison with her cherished treasures, her all, that 
after a moment's hesitation she found courage to ask 
for more. He cut her short immediately. " It 's all 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 83 

we can allow. The stones are valueless to us and wc 
give nothing on them. The gold is merely nine carat 
and on that we allow only by weight. You can have 
your rings back, if you are n't satisfied, but you 
won't do better." His manner was so decided that 
she knew it was hopeless to move him. She felt more 
as though she were talking to a machine, rather than 
to a man, as she looked into the expressionless face 
and listened to the dry voice. 

Quickly unbuttoning her dress at the throat, she 
unfastened the thin gold chain with its tiny round 
medal, bearing a relief of her protecting saint, which 
she had worn ever since her childhood, and laid it 
on the counter. He took back the ticket, examined 
the medal and chain, and after making another entry 
on the ticket, handed it back to her with an addi- 
tional thirty cents, saying shortly : " That 's the limit 
on it." She hesitated for a brief instant; then she 
thought again of her baby, lying in the fireless room. 
This money would at least buy coal enough for a 
couple of days or so, and she left the shop without 
more delay. 

She hastened back across the city to the North 
End and purchased sixty cents' worth of coal and 
kindling and ten cents' worth of macaroni for her- 
self, for she had eaten nothing since the day before. 
Out of the ten cents which remained she purchased 
three cents' worth of cheese to season the macaroni 
and a two-cent box of matches. She hurried on 
to the room, carrying some of the fuel herself in the 
skirt of her dress, to save time, and made up the fire, 
which was quite out. 

The place was already very cold, but the child 



84 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

seemed sleeping. It was only when she touched it 
that she was shocked to find how frigid its little face 
and hands were. She took it up from the bed and 
did her best to warm it against her body. The fire 
was an interminable time burning up and the tem- 
perature of the room rose but slowly. The child 
appeared chilled through and was strangely quiet. 
It did not wish anything when she tried to nurse it, 
and when she finally induced it to take nourishment, 
she found for the first time since the baby's birth 
that she had practically none to give it. She re- 
membered again that she had eaten nothing that 
day, and tucking the baby up in the bed, she set her- 
self to prepare and eat the macaroni. 

By the time she had finished, the room was at last 
warm and the baby became more active and began to 
make its wants known. She attempted once more to 
nurse it, but was still unable to do so. She realized 
that it would take time to assimilate the food she had 
eaten, but the baby was hungry and crying. What 
was she to do? She still had five cents left from the 
eighty cents, and with the nickel in her hand she 
snatched up an empty jug, hurried to the near-by 
shop, and purchased a pint of milk. She brought 
it back and warmed it and was thankful that the 
baby took it without trouble. It was the first occa- 
sion that he had seemed to relish cow's milk; but 
then she knew that he was very hungry, for she had 
not nursed him since noon and it was now eight 
o'clock at night. 

After a time the baby fell asleep and Nedda sat 
by its side, considering what to do. She had just 
enough money put by in the drawer to pay the rent 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 85 

and the furniture hire the following morning, and 
she had now bought sufficient coal for two days, that 
would be until Monday, and there was also some 
macaroni left for another meal for herself to-morrow. 

If she got no work then, she might have to 
starve over Sunday, but that did not much matter, 
provided she could only manage to nurse the baby. 
If not? Nedda shuddered. She comprehended but 
too well that starvation for herself meant starvation 
for her child, unless she could manage to get some 
more cow's milk; but how, with no money? She 
must find employment in the morning; she must, 
even if only a job for a few hours; and in her ten- 
sion and anxiety she threw herself once again on her 
knees beside the bed and poured out pitiful supplica- 
tions to the Madonna, smiling down on her so ten- 
derly from the little frame above. 

It was the one thing of any value she had refused 
to pawn, her picture of the Madonna with the little 
Jesus. Even her wedding ring was gone from her, 
but her Madonna she had saved. Surely her Ma- 
donna would help her, would not let her baby starve. 
In the stress of her emotion Nedda talked aloud to 
the picture, appealed to it, admonished it, explained 
to it, and as she talked and prayed she seemed gradu- 
ally to reassure herself. Or was it exhausted nature 
which came to her rescue? For she became quiet and 
even began to look forward to the morrow with a 
certain confidence. Surely the Madonna must help 
her, would help her, had promised to help her, and 
she would succeed. 



XIII 

IN the morning, after a few hours of wearied and 
perturbed sleep, Nedda found herself again able to 
nurse her baby. When she had tended to its wants 
and made up a good fire, she waited for the rent col- 
lector. He appeared promptly, and having paid him 
with her remaining money, she put her shawl over 
her shoulders and set out resolutely on her quest for 
something to do. 

It was a cold, dark day in early February and the 
reaction of mid-winter, after the stir of the holiday 
season, seemed to have communicated itself to the 
weather as well. People looked dispirited and were 
unresponsive. 

More determined than ever before, Nedda forced 
her way into shops and offices, pleading for employ- 
ment with an insistence which would have surprised 
her, if she had not been so preoccupied with the one 
idea of getting work at all costs. Everywhere the 
answer was the same: there was nothing for her to 
do. In some places people were polite, in others 
brusque, and in one or two instances she was sum- 
marily ordered out of shops, even before she had ex- 
plained herself, with " No beggars are allowed on 
these premises," or words to that effect. 

By three o'clock she concluded that it was hope- 
less to try to accomplish anything more at present, 
as her strength was failing. Moreover, she knew 
that the baby must be hungry and in need of her. 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 87 

She returned to the room to find the fire burned 
almost out, but the warmth of the place had not yet 
lessened very much, owing to the excellent fire she 
had made before starting. The baby was hungry 
and, tired as she was, she forced herself to nurse it 
and succeeded in so doing. Then she put it to sleep 
and, as darkness was falling, started out anew on 
her dreary search. 

Most of the stores were shutting, but there were 
night restaurants and lunch counters open, and in 
some of these she hoped to find a job as dish-washer 
or scrub-woman. Her efforts, however, were fruitless 
and at ten o'clock at night she staggered back to her 
room with nothing save starvation to look forward to. 

Though the child was hungry, she was wholly 
unable to nurse it. Again the insistent question : 
What was she to do? In her agony of despair and 
apprehension she walked restlessly around the room, 
with clenched hands and white, tortured face. The 
child was crying pitifully for nourishment all the 
while. Finally it fell asleep, and Nedda lay down 
beside it and soon passed into the deep sleep of com- 
plete exhaustion. 

It was near morning when the child's crying woke 
her and she sat up in bed, feeling dazed and very 
weak and faint. But the mother instinct was strong- 
est in her, so she took the baby and tried to nurse 
it. She discovered it was still impossible: she had 
no nourishment to give. After an hour of vainly 
endeavoring to soothe it she could bear its piteous 
appeals no longer and made up her mind to go out 
and beg for a little money in the streets, so that she 
might buy milk. 



88 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

When she found herself on the street, however, it 
being Sunday morning and the hour early, the side- 
walks were almost deserted. She stopped one or two 
people and tried to ask for money, but they either 
did not understand her or brushed her by indiffer- 
ently, and she finally sat down without hope on a 
doorstep. She did not even dare to return to her 
child, for she could not bring herself to hear it cry- 
ing for the food which she could not give. 

As she sat on the step in the cold morning air, 
huddled up in misery and exhaustion, her glance 
casually rested on an object at her feet. It was a 
small bottle of milk ! For a second her heart seemed 
to stop beating, she could not breathe. She was 
hardly able to trust her sight and took the bottle in 
her hand. Yes, it was heavy, full of milk, just left 
there apparently by the milkman. She put it down 
again beside the step, but it fascinated her, held her; 
she could not take her eyes away from it. Her mind 
worked feverishly with an alertness in marked con- 
trast to her torpor of a few minutes before. She 
saw that she must decide quickly, for at any mo- 
ment the door might open and the bottle disappear. 
It was her last chance; she knew it. If she took it 
she would be a thief; but then her child was starv- 
ing. She would be a thief and she could no longer 
look honest people in the face, but her baby would 
be saved. What mattered it what she became, if she 
might save her baby? She seized the bottle, hid it 
under her shawl, and hurried away through the silent 
street, not daring to think what she had done or to 
look around. 

When she reached her room she tasted the milk. 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 89 

Yes, it was the morning's milk, fresh and sweet. She 
warmed it and gave it to the child, who drank it 
with avidity. A wild, feverish satisfaction filled her. 
Her little one was saved! 

What of herself? She did not care. She knew 
that she was a thief, that she was no longer fit to 
look at the Madonna or to pray to her; but she did 
not care, she had saved her baby. That thought 
she gripped tight to her heart, as her darling fell 
quietly asleep, its hunger satisfied. 

It was a hard day for Nedda, for she was worn out 
almost to the state of illness and had had nothing 
to eat since she finished the macaroni the day before. 
There was still some of the milk left, but that she 
must keep for the baby's supper. She was tortured 
with apprehension and fears for the morrow, for she 
had lost all confidence in finding work, and by the 
morning she would be without both fuel and food. 
She almost wished that she had been caught stealing 
the milk, for then she would have been arrested and 
perhaps the police would have listened to her story 
and taken care of her child, even if she had to go to 
prison. 

That thought brought a ray of hope to her. Why 
not go to the authorities and ask for assistance? 
Surely there must be some help for her in this big 
rich city — they would not let her starve. Her pride 
revolted for a moment at the idea of being a public 
pauper; but that was no worse than begging in the 
streets, as she had tried to do that morning. She 
decided to go at once in the morning for aid, for 
to-day was Sunday and she knew all agencies were 
closed. 



XIV 

THE morning, which was bitterly cold, found 
Nedda famished and dizzy from weakness. 
She made up the fire with the remnants of the coal 
and started out immediately on her quest for public 
charity, for she dreaded lest the baby should awake 
and cry for food which she could not give. 

She went into the centre of the city, to a busy 
crossing where she knew she would find a policeman 
on duty, and going up to him she tried to ask him 
where she should apply for assistance for her baby 
and herself. She had thought what to say in ad- 
vance, but when she began to speak, the English 
words failed her. 

The officer, not being able to make out what she 
was talking about, sought to shake her off, but she 
stuck to him in desperation and finally conveyed 
something of her meaning to him. He advised her to 
go to a certain charitable association and directed 
her how to get there, but she would not leave him 
until he had written the address for her on a bit of 
paper. " As you are a foreigner," he said, " you 
had better apply there than to the city." She fol- 
lowed enough of his words to understand that, as 
had been explained to her at the consulate, being an 
alien made it harder for her to get help. 

She made her way to the office of this well-known 
charity, only to find that it did not open till eight 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 91 

o'clock. When the hour arrived and she made her 
wants known to the superintendent, she was told 
that she must apply to the divisional bureau in her 
own district, the North End. She got him to write 
out the street and number for her and hastened 
back to her quarter and to the place. 

The person in charge was very kind, but very 
deliberate. She wanted to know all about Nedda. 
Had she any references? Why had not the priest 
helped her? She told Nedda frankly that the or- 
ganization was using all of its resources to assist 
those already on its list and that she could not 
promise anything. The case would be investigated, 
however, and if an urgent one the society would do 
its best to aid her. Where did Nedda live? The 
secretary took down the address and agreed to send 
someone to make inquiries in a day or two. More 
than that could not be promised, for the charity was 
very busy. In the meantime Nedda should apply to 
her priest and also get a reference from him. 

Nedda, wholly desperate, tried to explain that she 
could not wait for a day or two, that she must have 
help at once; but her slight command of English 
failed her in the intensity of her emotion and the 
good lady seemed a little shocked by Nedda's im- 
portunity and excitement. She reiterated that 
Nedda's case would be looked into just as soon as 
was possible, and with that she closed the book in 
which she had the entries, with an air of decision and 
finality. 

She was clearly a kind, sweet, earnest woman, 
who was devoted to her work, but she felt that she 
had responsibilities which forbade her being stam- 



92 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

peded by this excitable little creature, who appeared 
to expect immediate succor without any guarantees 
that it was justified. Moreover, there was the ques- 
tion to be decided whether the society could under- 
take to give any more relief than it was already 
dispensing in that section of the city ; for its present 
obligations this very hard winter were exceptional 
and all its resources requisitioned. 

That Nedda was in such grievous and pressing 
need the secretary did not at all comprehend. Surely 
this young person could manage to get along for a 
day or two until the society could sift the facts, the 
good woman reasoned. Indeed she did not quite 
know whether to explain Nedda's excitability and 
insistence as nerves or temper or both. 

Nedda realized that it was useless to plead fur- 
ther, for she saw that she had not made clear her 
extreme, urgent necessity, so she stumbled out of 
the place as best she could. What was she to do? 
Ever the insistent question arose: What was she to 
do? The baby must be awake now and crying for 
food. Where should she go? The lady had men- 
tioned the priest. She had not seen him since her 
baby was christened, for she had felt that she could 
not afford to go to church, which meant a donation 
in the plate, and she feared she must be in bad 
standing with the father, if he remembered her at all. 

Nevertheless she directed her steps to the church 
and rang the bell at the priest's house adjoining. 
An Italian domestic appeared, who insisted on know- 
ing her business. Speaking in her native tongue, 
with the directness of desperation, Nedda explained 
herself. Her husband was at the war and she and 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 93 

her baby were without money. She needed imme- 
diate assistance. 

Only on Wednesdays and Saturdays did the father 
receive those who wished alms, the woman replied. 
If she would come then, she could perhaps see him; 
but it was uncertain whether he could give her any 
money, for there were many, a great many such as 
she who were already being helped by the church 
and it was very doubtful whether the father could 
aid any others. Only the most urgent cases, where 
there were several children or illness, were being 
attended to. She was young and must find em- 
ployment. 

Nedda began to protest, but the servant was 
evidently accustomed to this. Wednesday was the 
day for such cases, and if she would return then, 
probably the father would see her. With that the 
door was slowly shut in her face. 

Nedda turned back into the cold street, feeling as 
though Death were walking beside her. She knew 
that by now the baby must be crying for food — 
starving ! Again the terrible question : What should 
she do? She passed the milk shop and in despair 
went in and begged them to trust her for some milk 
for the baby; but the proprietor was out and the 
girl in charge said that she did not dare to do so on 
her own responsibility. 

Nedda stole out again into the freezing air of 
the street. What could she do? If she but had 
something left to pawn. As she hastened along in 
fear and apprehension, her shawl slipped from her 
head and she raised her hand to readjust it. The 
touch of her shawl gave her an idea. Her shawl ! 



94 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

Why not pawn that? It was old and much used, 
but they might give her something for it — enough 
to get a little milk. 

She hurried to the nearest pawnshop, the one 
where he had pledged most of her things. She 
slipped the covering from her head and shoulders 
and offered it over the counter. The woman was 
as imperturbable as ever. She took the shawl and 
examined it; then handed it back. "Too worn," 
she said briefly. But Nedda insisted. " Can't you 
give me something on it?" she implored. "I must 
buy milk for my baby." The pawnbroker took the 
garment in her hand again impassively. " Five 
cents," she said. " But not as a loan, it 's too much 
trouble. I '11 buy it for that." Nedda made a 
motion of assent. She was too spent to speak. The 
woman handed her the five cents and took the shawl. 

Nedda went quickly from the place back to the 
dairy. She placed the five cents on the counter 
and asked for a pint of milk. " There will be five 
cents more as deposit on the bottle," she was in- 
formed. Nedda had wholly forgotten about the 
bottle. She shuddered. The cold and this final 
difficulty were too much for her. 

Leaving the five cents with the girl, she ran shiv- 
ering through the frosty street to her room for the 
jug. When she arrived the fire was out and the 
baby awake and crying pitifully. She dared not 
take it in her arms for fear she might not have the 
courage to put it down, and time must not be lost. 
She seized the vessel and in a few moments reached 
the shop. The jug filled, she sped again to the room. 

There was, alas, no fire to warm the milk. She 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 95 

offered it cold to the baby, but he refused it. What 
should she do? She tried to warm the jug against 
her naked breast, but both receptacle and contents 
were stone cold. The child looked ghastly and 
wailed piteously. What should she do? What 
could she do? A thought came to her. She took a 
small quantity of the milk into her mouth at a time 
and warmed it, then allowed it to run very carefully 
from her mouth into the spoon, and started to feed 
it to the baby. It was no longer cold and the child 
accepted it. 

By this slow process she fed the poor little thing 
about fifteen or twenty spoonfuls of the milk, which 
was all it appeared to be able to take in its weakened 
condition. Then she put the baby back on the bed 
and covered it with all the bedclothes to protect it, 
but the frail wee mite had little heat of its own left 
in its wasted body and it seemed hopeless to attempt 
to keep it warm, as the room was growing bitterly 
cold. 

Nedda herself was almost at the last extreme of 
weakness and so chilled through, without her shawl, 
that she had to walk around the room to prevent 
herself from shivering. It was now nearly noon on 
Monday, and as she had not eaten since Saturday, 
she was literally starving. 

She thought if she rested on the bed for a 
moment she would feel less faint and she could get 
under the coverings, together with the child, from 
the cold. She did so and shortly lost consciousness. 
How long she lay there she did not know, but when 
she came to herself she was stiff in every joint and 
so weak that she could hardly rise. 



96 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

She got up, and as she did so the neighboring 
church clock struck four. The baby was appar- 
ently asleep. She touched its cheek; it was very 
cold, even colder than her own hand, she thought, 
and its lips looked blue. She shivered with appre- 
hension. Was it dead? She touched it again. It 
moved feebly. No, it was still alive. 

She warmed some milk in her mouth and tried to 
feed it, but she could not seem to arouse it from its 
torpor. She put it down again and covered it with 
the bedclothes. Again the crucial question: What 
could she do? What could she do? She would have 
taken the bed coverings and pawned them, but to 
do so she would have had to leave the baby uncov- 
ered, and without something over it the child would 
surely freeze to death before she could get coal with 
the proceeds of the pledge and warm the room. She 
thought of taking some of the chairs, though they 
were not her property, only rented with the other 
furniture, to the pawnshop, but she knew that she 
no longer had the strength to carry even a chair 
so far. 

Again the relentless question : What could she 
do? Could she ask assistance from anyone in the 
building? Useless. It was a tenement house of the 
poorest order and poverty was all around among 
her fellow countrywomen, many of them with their 
bread-winners away at the war. There had been 
two evictions for non-payment of rent within the 
last few weeks. 



XV 

THERE was nothing to do but to go into the 
street once more and beg, or steal if she could 
find anything to take. She turned towards the door, 
but the room seemed to whirl around and she found 
that she was too faint to walk. But she must do it, 
so she drank, very reluctantly, some of the milk, 
sipping it slowly, for she had reached the stage of 
starvation when she was no longer hungry. 

After a few minutes she began to feel a little 
stronger, and with a last glance at the child, which 
lay in a sort of torpor under the bedclothes, she 
started for the street. Without her shawl, which 
serves the Italian working woman as an habitual 
covering for both head and shoulders, she had no 
protection other than her poor dress from the 
weather, but she was past thinking of herself. It 
was a fight with Time now for the life of her baby. 

She considered it useless to try to beg in the North 
End, among a population mostly poor. With grim 
determination she sped steadily on to the central 
part of the city, where there were more well-to-do 
persons passing. 

It was nearly six o'clock and many people were 
hastening along. When she reached Washington 
Street she appealed to several, but they brushed her 
aside and hurried on. Others looked suspiciously 
at her, out in the winter street without hat or coat 



98 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

or other outer clothing, and she began to lose 
heart. 

It was now growing late and the crowd was thin- 
ning. At last she caught sight of a well-dressed 
elderly gentleman coming along by himself, appar- 
ently on his way home from his office. She plucked 
up all her courage and accosted him, holding out her 
hand in her effort to make herself understood. He 
hesitated and tried to pass on, but in her frenzied 
need she caught at his sleeve. He stopped short and 
fixed her with a glance of mixed annoyance and sever- 
ity, for he clearly misunderstood the nature of her 
request. " It is disgraceful," he said in a loud voice, 
which attracted the attention of several passers-by, 
" for you to be making advances in this way to men 
on the public street, and so young a girl too ! If 
you don't take your hand from my sleeve, I '11 call 
an officer and have you arrested at once. What is 
our city government coming to," he continued, evi- 
dently for the benefit of the bystanders, " that women 
of this order are allowed to infest the streets in this 
manner? " 

As soon as she comprehended the import of his 
words Nedda let go her imploring hold on his sleeve 
and moved quickly away among the crowd. She was 
completely cowed and unnerved. Taken for an aban- 
doned woman, threatened with arrest ; she fled along 
the crowded thoroughfare in the direction of the 
North End. Hardly knowing what she did, she 
hastened back to her room, like some hunted animal 
seeking safety. 

Though the weather had moderated somewhat, 
the room was like a vault — colder than outside, 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 99 

she thought. The baby was alive, but torpid. She 
could not seem to wake it, and when she endeavored 
to arouse it, it only squirmed in her arms with 
a querulous, muffled cry, as though it did not wish 
to be disturbed. Its little feet were icy cold, and 
though she tried to warm them by chafing them, 
she could not succeed. She grew still more desperate, 
for she realized that the child was slipping from her, 
and placing it back in the bed under the clothes, 
she ran blindly down the stairs and out into the 
street, determined to do something, anything, to 
save her child. 

As she turned a corner into a near-by side street 
she came upon a well-dressed man and woman who, 
standing by the door of a house and in the light of 
the street lamp, were engaged in conversation. She 
went up to them, without giving herself time to think, 
and asked for alms. They ignored her appeal. She 
felt that she must make them listen to her and poured 
out her words anyhow in her scanty English. Her 
child was ill, perhaps dying from cold and hunger; 
she was without money or food or fuel. She saw that 
they understood her. The woman was the first to 
speak. Why did she not find work? Nedda broke 
forth in a passionate recital of her fruitless efforts 
to do so. 

Then the man, who had begun to look at her, 
spoke, and the minute she heard his voice she recog- 
nized him. He was the dreaded customer who had 
so often persecuted her at the fruit stall. Even in her 
misery and recklessness a qualm of fear passed through 
her, and she was tempted to run away, but she put it 
aside in the thought of her baby and faced him. 



100 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

" A nice little girl like you ought not to be in 
such a fix," he said. " We ain't got no money to 
give you, but I '11 put you on easy street if you ain't 
too particular." He looked at her with cold, calcu- 
lating eyes. Nedda understood. " This house here 
belongs to me, and Vera here runs it," he continued, 
indicating the woman. " We 've got some nice girls 
inside and a nice class of trade. There 's good ready 
money for you with us. Just be a little affectionate 
to some of my friends and you '11 be able to live and 
take care of your kid without any more worry, my 
girl," he added in a coaxing tone. 

Nedda made no reply; she stood silent, unrespon- 
sive before them. She remembered now the house 
before which they were. Once in summer she had 
taken a short cut through that street, and in passing 
hastily she had heard ribald laughter from behind 
the closed shutters ; laughter without any mirth in 
it; noisy, strident laughter that seemed to her im- 
agination like sounds from another world, a horrible 
world, where there was no truth or gentleness or 
purity or trust in the Madonna. 

" You '11 be a foolish girl to let a good chance like 
this go," put in the woman in a hoarse, loose voice. 
" There 's company in the house at this minute and 
money being spent, and there '11 sure be more later 
in the evening, for the motor show 's brought lots 
of travelling men and business people to town this 
week." 

" In three hours you '11 make five dollars sure," 
added the man, " and that 's more than you 'd earn 
in a week, if you had a job," he said patronizingly. 

Nedda still remained silent. They evidently 



THE STORY OF NEDDA 101 

thought it wisest to give her time to consider, for 
it was easy to see that under her apparent detach- 
ment she was trying to think. 

Then she spoke, in a queer, hollow, little voice, 
which she was not sure was her own. " And can I 
go back to my baby after three hours, with — with 
the money? " 

" Sure you can go back to see your kid every day, 
and you '11 be able to pay somebody to mind it for 
you, when you 're away," the man replied in a 
wheedling tone. 

Nedda did not answer ; she stood looking straight 
in front of her. She appeared to be listening to some- 
thing unheard by the others, so intent was she. 

The woman looked behind Nedda at her com- 
panion, with a sly, questioning glance. Was it safe 
to let the girl go home, once they had her? The 
man answered that look with a confident, satanic 
wink, which said only too plainly : " No danger. 
After the first step she 's ours." 

Nedda was almost unconscious of their presence. 
Something seemed gripping her by the throat and 
slowly choking her. She thought of Marco, far 
away in the trenches, fighting for Italy and for her, 
trusting her, loving her. She felt that she was say- 
ing " Good-bye " to him forever. She prayed that he 
might be killed, that he might never live to learn what 
she had come to ; he would then be safe with the good 
angels in Paradise and would never know the truth. 

The woman made a movement of impatience, but 
her companion restrained her with a glance. He 
read the situation with sure intuition and was con- 
tent to wait. 



102 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

Suddenly the cry of an infant in some near-by 
tenement broke the stillness. Nedda started and 
trembled. It seemed to her for an instant as though 
her own little one were crying out to her. She 
thought of it all alone in that icy room. She re- 
membered how cold its tiny feet were when she had 
tried to warm them, before she ran out into the street 
in desperation. Something seemed to grip her by 
the throat again ; she struggled to breathe, and then, 
by using all her will, she found the power to speak. 
Her voice sounded still more hollow and distant ; she 
was not sure that she was speaking, that her words 
were really audible, as she said : " I '11 go." 

They passed through that dark doorway, too 
narrow for more than one at a time. The woman 
went first, Nedda next, and the man followed as a 
rear-guard. The door closed on them, and there 
was silence in the deserted street. Only the creak- 
ing of a dilapidated sign broke the sinister stillness 
and desolation. 

A taxi-auto turned the corner and stopped before 
the door. Two men got out, rather ordinary men 
of the type of commercial travellers. One was some- 
what drunk. " Is this the place? " he asked in a 
thick voice. " Yes, this is the house I told you of," 
the chauffeur replied. "It's a Dago joint — nice 
little girls, warm babies. They '11 treat you well." 
One of the men paid him, while the other rang the 
bell. The door opened and the two men disappeared 
within. It closed as the auto glided away. The 
street was silent again. 



AFTERWORD 

THIS is the story of Nedda, and whatever its 
demerits it has one merit — truth. All the 
destitute of the war are not in Europe; some of 
them are here in Boston, right at our doors. If 
the New England Italian War Relief Fund collapses, 
as it inevitably will collapse within a short time 
unless immediate and substantial help is now forth- 
coming, 1 the forty-six women with fifty-three chil- 
dren whom it is now employing here in Boston to 
make things which are sent to the hospitals for the 
Italian wounded, and whom it is thus providing with 
the bare necessaries of life, will, many of these women 
and little children, be faced by just such destitution 
as destroyed Nedda. The other charitable organiza- 
tions in the North End are financially unable to take 
these poor people over — they have said so — and 
as aliens these Italians have no recognized claim on 
the municipal charities. Less than one-third of those 
on the War Relief's books 2 are entitled to and re- 

1 It costs the fund at present approximately $1500 a month for its 
incidental expenses, materials used, wages paid the destitute women, 
and allowances to feed their children, and more families are constantly 
applying for assistance. At the time of writing this there is not enough 
money remaining to cover two months' expenditures, and winter is 
with us. 

2 Only the families of those soldiers now at the front who have 
done military service previous to this war are entitled to relief from 
the Italian government; wives receive fourteen cents a day and 
children seven cents each a day. Of the names of reservists' wives 



104 THE STORY OF NEDDA 

ceive assistance from the Italian government, and 
that relief, when given, is wholly inadequate to keep 
them alive and under shelter at the existing cost of 
living. 

What are you going to do about it, American 
readers? Here are a large number of defenceless 
women and children left derelict on our shores by 
the great undertow of war, which has torn their 
natural protectors from them. Will you see them 
starve? Will you " sit tight " and see the sufferings 
of poor little Nedda and her baby become an actual- 
ity in our midst again and again? I appeal to you 
in the name of our common humanity, as men and 
women, as husbands and wives, as fathers and 
mothers, to come to the rescue of these unfortunate 
families before it is too late. 

The necessary detachable subscription forms, 
which it is particularly requested will be filled in 
and forwarded zvith remittances, are affixed at the 
front of this book. 

recorded on the books of the New England Italian War Relief Fund 
only sixteen have received or are receiving such governmental aid 
and thirty-nine are without and not entitled to it by the regulations. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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